The VMRO-DPMNE branch in Sveti Nikole, where the textile industry is a major employer, is warning about the on-going collapse and job losses.

In the past weeks, the local Moda textile mill, owned by a former SDSM member of Parliament, fired 300 workers. Hundreds are fired in the large Bargala shoe factory in Stip, which is owned by the family of SDSM appointed Mayor Sasko Nikolov, and 50 from Alkon Teks.

The workers are massively being fired. They are being lied to that financial aid is coming, while at the same time the ruling majority refuses our proposed bill. Local authorities are doing nothing to create jobs in light of this situation, the VMRO-DPMNE branch said.

The party is responding to the recent visit of Deputy Prime Minister Ljupco Nikolovski to the region, where he boasted about the hike in the minimum wage (which is likely contributing to the job losses) and the provided subsidies for a thousand workers who have been fired from long defunct companies that collapsed with the fall of Communism. There is no similar program in place for the newly fired textile and shoe workers.