CEO of Hewlett Packard Bulgaria Iravan Hira and Labor Minister Totyu Mladenov have signed a cooperation agreement in order to facilitate employment.

The document provides for close cooperation between the Bulgarian branch of the computer giant HP and the State Employment Agency.

“We have been holding talks with the Labor Ministry for several months. As a large investor and employer we are interested in keeping doing business successfully here,” said the HP CEO while also revealing that the company hired 700 new employees in that period.

In his words, the HP customer service center in Bulgaria already employs 2 500 people with an average age of 30. Most of these people are university graduates, and women make up 40% of their total number and 30% of all managers.

“Creating 700 new jobs in a time of crisis is a very serious achievement. We would like to support the efforts that HP Bulgaria is investing into the training of qualified laborers here. We are concerned about youth unemployment, and that is why we will do everything in our powers to help HP to keep the young people in Bulgaria,” declared Labor Minister Mladenov at the signing ceremony.

The Employment Agency has pointed out that some 30 000 of the registered unemployed hold university degrees.

It will cooperate with HP by proposing future employees, providing benefits and partial subsidies for the hiring and training of young people. The funding will be provided from the state budget and EU operational programs.

“Our cooperation with the Employment Agency will boost HP’s existing programs for hiring and training of young IT specialists. These programs encompass three partnerships with technical universities in Bulgaria, and the training is based on methodologies used in leading world universities such as Stanford. The young men and women receive training which is above the professional level that they acquire upon graduating from university,” explained Sasha Bezuhanova, Director Public Sector at Hewlett Packard Central & Eastern Europe.

“This is how we actually improve the competitiveness of the Bulgarian IT market because the trainees have no binding commitments to HP Bulgaria and free to set up their own firms or to enter other fields,” she said.

Labor Minister Mladenov has announced the creation of a new employment measure by his institution which will provide funding for internships for about 13 000 young Bulgarians. The Ministry will sponsor six-month internships in various spheres by providing a monthly payment of BGN 300 plus benefits, excluding any pay that may be granted by the respective employer.