MOSCOW, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday employment has risen to pre-recession levels.
"On the whole, the situation certainly looks better this year than last year, these are objective data: unemployment in the country has decreased, and decreased by quite a significant figure -- actually, it's returned to the pre-crisis level," Medvedev said to the assembled unemployed workers in an center in Moscow's Strogino District, ITAR-Tass reported.
The number of people registered as unemployed amounts to 6.9 percent of the country's labor force, Medvedev said.
The president's press secretary, Natalia Timakova, said Medvedev's meeting at the employment center was the first of many meetings and discussions he intends to devote to work issues, ITAR-Tass reported.
"The discussions will be devoted not only to the registered unemployed, but to the employment of the youth and the problem of employment itself," Timakova said.
Medvedev said some of the steps he will encourage to curb unemployment will range from mass introduction of community service to helping the unemployed establish their own businesses, RIA Novosti reported.
