This programme will allow persons who have become involuntarily unemployed to receive unemployment benefits. PM Pierre says the government is committed to establishing this unemployment insurance program, which will be implemented alongside an Active Labor Market policy.

This policy will assist the unemployed by providing basic work training for disadvantaged groups in particular, by securing work placements that encourage entrepreneurship and small business development, and by providing employer incentives for the provision of staff training.

The Prime Minister explained: “Involuntary unemployment means you become unemployed through no fault of your own, and most important is the Active Labor Market policy where the NIC will try to reskill and retrain so that those who become unemployed can get another job.”

Pierre adds that the intention is not to create or encourage unemployment, but to provide additional safety nets for vulnerable sectors of the population.

“We don’t want people in a perpetual state of unemployment and government pays. If a person has lost a job involuntarily, the NIC will try to retrain so that person can obtain alternative employment. It is a stopgap measure between losing one job and gaining other, meaningful employment,” he said.

The involuntarily unemployed are defined as those who are willing to work but are unable to due to business closures, job cuts, seasonal fluctuations, or mismatched skillsets.