Number of unemployed will drop by 40.000 on Sunday

Sunday, 1 March, marks an important day for nearly 40.000 unemployed Belgians. From tomorrow onwards, they will no longer receive a social security benefit, because they have been unemployed for too long. The measure is part of a broader offensive from the federal government to get as many people as possible to work. Several measures start tomorrow/Sunday.

As of 1 March, workers who lose their jobs will receive an allowance for two years maximum. Until last year, people could stay on the unemployment insurance for life (although there were several conditions). This ended last year.

It was then estimated that nearly 200.000 unemployed would have to find alternatives. Those 200.000 have been unemployed for longer than two years. Not all of those fall without income tomorrow. People who have been unemployed for more than 20 years already lost their right on 1 January. People who have been unemployed for between 8 and 20 years lose their right on 1 March. People between 2 and 8 years of unemployment lose their allowance in the coming months.

It’s unclear how many people exactly will be hit in the present ‘wave’. The group between 8 and 20 years counted nearly 40.000 people last year, but it is expected that several of them already have a job by now. There are also some exceptions on social grounds.

Besides getting more people to work, the government of PM Bart De Wever also hopes the measure will save social security a lot of money. There are some doubts about this. People who have been unemployed for that long will have a hard time finding a well-paid job and paying a lot of taxes. Many of the affected people will probably turn to local social services to get a minimum allowance there. Another measure starting this Sunday is stricter control over the conditions for receiving such an allowance.

Other parts of the policy of ‘activating’ are measures to make people on long-term medical leave return to work and measures to realise a tax shift: less taxes on labour, more taxes on consumption, capital, …

_{© BELGA PHOTO NICOLAS LAMBERT}