TBILISI, December 1 – Georgia is preparing to shut down a social employment scheme after four years, as the government moves to overhaul the way low income citizens are supported in the job market, BPN reports.
A new draft of the 2026 state budget, released on Monday, confirms that the public works component of the “Employment System Reform Program” will end this year. The funding cut is dramatic. The original 2026 budget proposal allocated 113 million lari (43 million USD) for the program, but the third revised draft reduces that figure to just 22 million lari (8 million USD). The cut is so large that it effectively closes down the scheme, according to BPN.
The government says the program has completed the full four year cycle planned when it launched in March 2022. Since then, socially vulnerable citizens were offered temporary work in public institutions while keeping their social assistance. Each position carried a monthly salary of 300 lari, or around 110 US dollars.
According to the budget explanation note, the government believes the conditions that justified the scheme in 2022 no longer exist. The economy has grown rapidly in recent years and the labor market has shifted. Officials say Georgia is now dealing with a shortage of workers rather than a shortage of jobs.
Because of that, the government argues it is “reasonable” not to continue the program in its current form and instead direct beneficiaries into training programs aimed at helping them transition to the private sector.
At its time of launch, the scheme received 48 million lari in funding. The following year, funding was more than doubled to 107 million lari, and has remained around that level until now.
