Ukrainian Social Policy Minister Natalia Korolevska has said there is a need to find jobs for 490,000 unemployed people this year.

"We clearly set targets. It's necessary to employ about 490,000 unemployed people in 2013 and more than 500,000 next year," she said at a meeting of the Social Policy Ministry in Kyiv on Thursday.

In addition, among the main tasks of the ministry, she named stimulating employers to create 30,000 new jobs in 2013.

Korolevska criticized some regions for professionally retraining the unemployed, but failing to employ them after that.

She also informed the meeting participants about wage arrears in the country.

"Wage arrears remain a problem, and as of July 1 the actual arrears reached UAH 976 million," Korolevska said.

She noted that there was a good trend in 19 regions, in which the wage arrears are constantly decreasing, but they are growing in the remaining eight regions.