Social and Labour Policy Minister Emilia Maslarova promised to raise pensions by 10.3 per cent as of July 1. Speaking on commercial bTV on April 25 2008, Maslarova said that salaries in the public sector would increase again by 10 per cent again as of July 1.

Furthermore, Maslarova said that the money allocated to children’s homes would increase by 50 per cent. She did not say when the latter increase would take effect.

But the Ministry was going to stop paying social welfare to families in need whose children did not attend school lessons, she also said.

Maslarova was presenting the new updated version of Bulgaria’s employment strategy 2008-2015. The strategy will be floated for discussion on April 30 at a Council of Ministers session. 

According to a statement published on the Ministry’s website, unemployment in Bulgaria has gone down to 6.6 per cent from 12.7 per cent in 2005 when the current Government came to power.

The strategy predicts that the share of those who have dropped out of school should drop from the current 16.6 per cent to 10 per cent by 2015.

Labour productivity should increase by 15 per cent a person by 2015, the strategy said.

Maslarova’s promise of more public sector spending came two weeks after Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said that the Government would focus on social policy in the last year of its term in office.

Stanihsev is leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party of which Maslarova is also a member.