Employers expressed dissapointed today over the government's decision to give up on instituting temping jobs for unemployed persons over 50 and to limit this to pensioners, with Employers' Association secretary general Igor Antauer saying that employers wanted temp jobs to be possible for all unemployed.

He believes that the temping jobs would get the unemployed "appropriately warmed up" before being hired.

The trade unions on the other hand are much happier with the government's decision. However, they do not all share the same position.

The country's biggest trade union confederation (ZSSS) is willing to support the latest proposal if the state will set up a regulatory system to prevent negative effects for the labour market.

The Pergam and KS90 trade unions, on the other hand, do not want to see pensioners temping. Jakob Počivavšek of Pergam believes that this option would reduce the price of labour.

He also believes that temping of pensioners would be very hard to supervise and that it would develop into an anomaly similar to student work, which, he says, is not regulated.

The government also presented today several proposals on unemployment compensation. After the trade unions already gave in to government's proposals on lowering severance pay and layoff notice time, they showed no willingness to support a proposal under which compensations would be reduced from 80% to 70% of former pay in the first three months after job loss.

Antauer said after the meeting that unemployment compensation should not be reduced significantly in the first three months. After that the reduction should be big enough to motivate the unemployed to seek training and look for a new job, while today they wait at home or engage in illegal work.

Andrej Zorko of the ZSSS said that unemployment compensation provisions are the most controversial issue of the talks at this point. Počivavšek moreover said that the trade unions will decide on the government's proposals on Wednesday, when the next meeting of the social partners is scheduled.

The labour reform is expected to be passed by the National Assembly by March.