site.btaLabour Ministry Measure Aims to Encourage Counterurbanization

The Ministry of Labour and Social Policy will launch an internal mobility initiative aimed at people in large cities who want to work and live in smaller towns, in a more peaceful environment, sometimes with better social infrastructure and more options for daycare for children, Labour Minister Nataliya Efremova told BTA. She was in the village of Dobrodan, near Troyan, attending the opening of a retirement home that had been renovated as part of a project.

The Minister clarified that this measure is similar to the I Choose Bulgaria initiative which seeks to encourage Bulgarians who live and work abroad, to return to their home country.

but is linked to the demographics and population characteristics of the country. The goal is to support the process of returning to places where life is more peaceful and healthier.

The programme will be open for at least a year, since the requirement for receiving the incentives is that the person must have been employed for at least eight months by the 12th month, even with interruptions.

Efremova added that since the launch of the I Choose Bulgaria initiative, over 4,000 applications have been received. "Half of them have been approved - far more than we initially expected to be able to approve. The first payments under this measure have already started, meaning we have the first people returned who have found jobs and settled in with their families," the Minister said.

Payments for household goods transportation, first incentives provided after the sixth month of continuous employment have also started, while those for the twelfth month are upcoming. To date, approximately EUR 400,000 have been paid out to over 200 individuals who have successfully submitted documentation verifying their six months of employment.

Efremova said that the application window for this measure is now closed, since the applications received are more than what the programme can financially accommodate, but the Ministry is discussing allocating additional funds that could be directed toward a new round of the initiative.