More than 6,000 people will get training this year paid for by the state budget, and one in six of them will train for jobs in construction or related trades. Deputy labour minister Danail Rusev said this at the opening of a round table titled "Prospects, Challenges and Vision for the Development of the Construction Sector", the labour ministry's press office said.

Rusev said investing in people's skills is one of the best ways to match businesses with workers and ease the shortage of staff. More than 220,000 people now work in construction, close to 9% of everyone in work in Bulgaria, he said. Employment agency surveys show "construction worker" is still one of the jobs employers look for most.

The shortage of workers is a long-running problem, the deputy minister added. He said the ministry is working on several fronts at once. It reaches out to people who are neither working nor studying and offers them training and ways to build up their skills. It is also bringing back Bulgarians who gained experience abroad and turning to workers from outside the EU.

Rusev said the "Human Resources Development" programme has around 440 million euros set aside to help people and employers. The money pays for training for people who are unemployed or outside the labour market, for putting them into subsidised jobs, and for upgrading the skills of people already in work, he explained.

He also presented a new pilot scheme called "Specific Skills for the Workforce", with a budget of more than 13 million euros. Under this scheme, employers themselves decide what training their staff need. That means businesses choose the content of the training directly and prepare workers for specific jobs, Rusev said.

The ministry is also working to link its institutions more closely together, he said. A register of people outside the labour market is due to start running, the ministry said. After that, local teams will work with each person one by one to help them find a job again.

Job openings employers posted in August were up 14% on July, the employment agency said a few days ago. By the end of August, unemployment stood at 5.47%, with 155,007 people registered as jobless across Bulgaria.