The PSOE candidate for Mayor of Santa Cruz, Patricia Hernández, announced that she will double the City Council’s contribution to employment and training plans to promote access to the labor market for unemployed and socially excluded people. The socialist strategy involves accessing the largest number of subsidies, charged to programs of the European Social Fund, the Public State Employment Service, the Canary Islands Employment Service and the Cabildo, to increase the hiring of sectors with the greatest difficulty in accessing the working market.
In addition, both employment plans and training plans will be permanently updated, adjusting them to current market needs. “We know that many sectors need qualified personnel, this is happening in the construction or hospitality industry that demand very specific profiles and the positions remain vacant because there are no trained personnel. That is where we have to aim for demand and supply to adjust”, he pointed out.
For the socialist candidate it is “inadmissible” that the current mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez (CC), has returned a subsidy of 800,000 euros to the Cabildo, intended to promote employment in the municipality, with the unemployment rate being over 20% for more than a decade. “The Santa Cruz City Council was the only local corporation on the entire island that returned money, which did not reach the maximum of the call and mismanagement has taken away a job opportunity for 65 people,” he said.
In this sense, he said that if the rest of the employment projects that the Consistory has with other public administrations are added, “more than 250 people could have been hired, but the lack of political will of CC has prevented it. In addition, 200,000 euros less than the total amount were requested in the call.
“The City Council only allocates 0.9% of its budget, which includes financing from other administrations, a derisory figure that reveals the importance that the mayor and his team give to this matter. Added to this is the audacity to renounce requesting the subsidies that other administrations make available to the town councils”, he pointed out.
