Vande Lanotte says poverty has fallen among working people, but has risen in other groups, especially among single parents without work. Twenty-seven percent of single parents live under the poverty line.

The Flemish socialist hopes that offering free childcare for a year or two can help these single parents find a job and work themselves out of poverty.

In exchange for the free facilities, the parents would have to follow job training and go to work.

Of the 200,000 jobs that the government wanted to generate this government term, some 180,000 will probably actually be created, Vande Lanotte said, and that “the ambition was not aiming high enough.” He said that more efforts are needed to improve employment opportunities, more so in the Walloon region than Flanders.

[Copyright Expatica News 2007]

Subject: Belgian news