Phase Two of Unemployment Relief Commences

Carla Barnett

Almost fifty thousand persons have applied for unemployment relief through the Government of Belize amid the COVID-19 pandemic.  As part of the second phase of the programme, workers who have been laid off as well as self-employed persons who have lost their jobs and means of income are eligible for assistance.  According to Doctor Carla Barnett, long-term unemployed persons who were not approved in phase one have been referred to the Ministry of Human Development for consideration.  For eligible persons, the financial relief to be provided in phase two will be the same as before, one hundred and fifty dollars every two weeks for a twelve-week period.

Dr. Carla Barnett, Minister of State, Ministry of Labor

“The Unemployment Relief Program phase two opened for applications a week ago and we had quite a number of applications accepted in the system.  When last I counted it, it was upwards of forty-nine thousand people had already applied online.  So we’ve already began the process of sifting out and pulling out the ones that are clearly well-prepared and everything and following up on those that require further information to be provided.  But people are asking questions, people are passing on to us some of the issues that they’re having, but we’re expecting that to reasonably smoothly and we should see approvals and payments begin to be made by the end of this week or by the latest, the beginning of next week.”