Bulgaria's Government was ready step in with re-qualification courses for employees of debt-ridden Kremikovtzi steel mill in case the steelworks was shut down, the executive director of the Employment Agency said on November 26.

In the worst case scenario, should Kremikovtzi's steel-working operations be discontinued, the agency had sufficient funding under European Union's operational programme for human resource development, to retrain the 3000 people now employed at the steelworks, Rossitsa Stelianova told Bulgarian news agency BTA.

The figure was small compared to the numbers handled by the agency, which planned to launch a new retraining programme for people who lost their jobs since November 2008, she said.

"Against the background of this opportunity to help retrain and temporarily subsidise the employment of 67 000 people, I think that 3000 will find their place," Stelianova said.

For decades, loss-making Kremikovtzi was allowed to amass debts to the state Budget and state-owned companies, which acted as indirect subsidies for the steelworks. Restructuring was rarely on the agenda, as different cabinets feared the possible backlash from Kremikovtzi employees that would have been made redundant.

Kremikovtzi's payroll has slowly declined over the years instead, with the most recent wave of redundancies announced in December 2008, after the steelworks was forced to shut down its coke oven battery and two blast furnaces.

Part of the initial group of 400 people were already in new jobs and a project for the retraining of 1000 more would be launched soon, Stelianova said.