Labour Minister Josip Aladrovic said on Thursday that by continuing pay subsidies into the new year the government showed that it stood by businesses and wanted to protect every job.

Speaking to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Aladrovic said that the purpose of active employment policy measures was to cover all labour market participants and simplify employment or self-employment and training. He said that the measures would cover an estimated 25,000 people, and that the government would invest HRK 1.2 billion for this purpose.

Asked to comment on statements by employers that the measures were designed for workers and not for them, Aladrovic said he disagreed, recalling that the government was covering fixed costs, in part or in full, depending on a revenue decline, for all business that had been ordered to shut down as part of efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

“These measures are aimed at maintaining business activity and are designed for employers,” he said, adding that the job-keeping measure had a double effect – to help both employers and workers, and that employers directly benefited from compensation for fixed costs. “At the same time we are protecting both business liquidity and jobs,” he stressed.

Asked if employers would be offered any further support, because they said the present support was not enough, Aladrovic said that any additional or wider support was unrealistic at this point. “The present situation is not essentially different from the situation in which the previous measures were adopted, so we decided to extend the job keeping measures for another two months to provide employers with certainty.”