Endless queues outside Algarve job centres – at just the time many hotels are closing for winter, leaving thousands out of work – have led to more questions in Parliament. Members of the Socialist Party (PS) are taking the government to task, asking why employment centres cannot work faster.
Portimão’s Centro de Emprego is a case in point. At the beginning of the month, scores of people camped outside all night, in the hope that they would be attended to the next day and avoid losses of benefit. Many didn’t make it and were told to come back another time.
According to PS member Miguel Freitas, the unemployment situation on its own is “extremely delicate”. It becomes far more serious, he considers, when workers face frustrating delays trying to sign up at job centres.
Freitas believes the problem could be down to lack of the right number of staff on hand in job centres – an issue he queried, reminding the government of an agreement signed in 2012 focusing on growth, competitiveness and employment, and setting “the reinforcement of human resources at employment centres” as a goal.
But the IEFP (Institute for Employment and Professional Training) stressed it has boosted staffing levels at job centres, adding that applicants can access online services to save the frustrating delays and long waits in employment offices.
IEFP confirmed 3,000 people signed on at the beginning of November, but that this is not unusual.
Jobless figures always rise in the Algarve over the winter as tourism winds down – but many feel the situation has become worse over the last few years as the crisis has seen many businesses close never to reopen.
