Dear Government, I am writing to you (still employed, waiting for a job) regarding your latest measures to save our tourism (as far as the media and press conferences have shown). Please do not lump everything together, tourism is not only about hotels and other accommodation (for which you offer vouchers). You optimistically predict a recovery of tourism, with the distribution of vouchers, which will benefit about 50% of Slovenian citizens (I have heard Mr Lahovnik mention this somewhere); the situation should improve within a month (by 30.6.2008).The situation is supposed to improve so much that then we will all be able to work and earn as if there was almost nothing to work and earn as if there was almost nothing to work and earn as if there was nothing to earn. Shortened working hours in the hereafter, with firms not having the income to cover half or more of their employees' salaries, and at the same time no work. You may save a few jobs in hotels and the like, but you will not save the travel industry, and I am not just talking about agencies offering holidays abroad; I am also talking about the service we provide to Slovenian business guests, from air tickets to accommodation and other services around the world. You have to agree here that this segment will not be revived by the end of June (no congresses, no meetings, no flights) and the only logical thing to do would be to extend the PKP1 standby until demand for these services returns (which it surely will!). Believe me, all of us who are now forced to stay at home (or at the Institute) want to work, because we cannot live on air and we need the means to survive! PPP3 does not guarantee a livelihood and, given that the conditions are almost the same as if you are registered with the Employment Service, I predict that many of us will be dismissed for business reasons immediately after 31.5. Your ministers, at one press conference after another, repeated the mantra about the stimulus of these measures and talked us out of our minds about fish, fishermen and sticks. All I can say is that what you do and what you believe in (and will ultimately be needed again) is not just thrown away overnight! And, just to be clear, I am looking for another job, but at 62 years old and with 90,000 jobseekers, I am not getting one!
So, after this long writing, in short: extending the waiting time for a job under the terms of PPP1, and until October, November - this is the only thing that would save many jobs in the tourism industry.
Stay healthy!