$1.33 million to unemployed
The Chilean government has pledged to spend US $1.33 million to develop local initiatives, in a bid to boost employment levels in the wake of the Chilean salmon industry's struggles.
Low prices combined with high production costs in Chile, in addition to recent Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) are just some of the factors that have influenced poor results in the local salmon industry.
According to the local newspaper El llanquihue, these problems have been reflected by close to 5,000 layoffs from the salmon industry, mainly in the region of Los Lagos.
As a result it was decided to allocate CLP$ 900 million (about US$ 1.33 million) in 18 projects of the Regional Fund for Local Initiative, which equates to around US$ 73,000 per project, in order to help create new jobs.
As reported in El Llanquihue “another agreement was that an additional CLP$ 900 million, originally intended to be spent on training, can be redirected”.
