KHROG, October 15, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Over the first nine month of this year, more than 5,500 residents of Gorno Badakhshan have applied to appropriate agencies for jobs and 3,382 of them have been registered as unemployed, which is 4 percent the region’s labor resources, Mamadkarim Nazirov, the head of the GBAO agency for social care, employment and labor migration, told reporters in Khorog on October 14.

Over the same nine-month period, 28 job vacancy fairs have been held in Gorno Badakhshan and 4,666 people have bee placed in permanent and seasonal jobs, Nazirov said, noting that 7,642 new jobs have been created in the region in January-September 2010.

According to him, 750 other people have been sent to take vocational courses.  “341 of them have received 6,500 somoni in preferential loan each to start their businesses,” Nazirov said.

In all, 700,000 somoni have been provided in loans to temporarily unemployed people in Gorno Badakhshan over the report period.

As of October 1, 2010, 25,171 residents of Gorno Badakhshan, or 30 percent of the labor resources of the region, were outside the country for seasonal work.