The council have also started to allocate assistance funding for small and medium enterprises and the self-employed, with almost €2 million set aside for those most affected
As the council is preparing to release the annual budget estimates, the Adeje council has released information on current job projects and the modifications to the borough’s financing from March of last year when the Covid pandemic struck. Since then the council have created 266 jobs, direct and indirect, and continue to work to offset the thousands of jobs lost in the last year. Employment councillors Manuel Luis Méndez and Raquel Rodríguez are also confident that in the coming months they will reach their current target of 400 jobs.
The council has invested €1.5 million in job creation and training programmes, to assist the hundreds of Adeje residents in need of assistance, with similar and parallel monies coming from the Tenerife Cabildo, and the regional and national governments. “We realise it is impossible to meet the immediate needs of everyone that is and has been suffering as a result of this crisis, but our obligation is to try to help as many and in as many ways as possible, and to work primarily to reach those most in need”, said the Adeje mayor José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga. He went on to say that these figures are just those from the economic development and employment departments, and of course assistance was also on-going from the social services area.
Those 266 people who have been employed are from different groups, those with few qualifications, others who lost jobs directly as a result of the pandemic, over 45s, etc., now working in different areas of the borough, in a variety of jobs, from gardening to street maintenance.
The projects also include training in the service and leisure sectors, and there are currently courses in IT coming on line which will bring students into the digital era. “We have noticed that there is a specific group of young workers, 20 – 30 year olds, who can take advantage of new opportunities and we are adapting and creating training programmes to meet their needs”, the mayor commented. He added that the hope was that these programmes would see up to 100 more people in training and job creation.
As well as job creation the council is now allocating funding aid to small and medium enterprises and the self-employed, grants from between €400 and €900. €1 million has been set aside for this, to help businesses meet certain costs and overheads.
As the new budget estimates are being finalised the council is also hoping that we can welcome back tourism soon, but is also preparing financially for that not to happen in the short term. “And we will be prepared to meet the needs of those individuals most in need…” said José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga. He pointed to the need to be on hand to help people in the community, “including those who may have problems seeking assistance from public administrations, perhaps because they are unaware of the assistance on offer or they have never sought such aid in the past and are reluctant to take that step”.