GENEVA — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin boasted about his record as a job creator at the UN labor agency on Wednesday, in an apparent bid to boost his standing ahead of elections.
Putin's government pumped billions of dollars from oil reserves into Russia's economy from 2008 to 2010 to raise pensions and wages, create jobs and support ailing enterprises.
"The government of Russia will continue to carry out an active labor policy," Putin said in address at the 100th conference of the International Labor Organization in Geneva.
Putin said his government created four million jobs from 2009 to 2010 and unemployment fell from 9.4 percent in February 2009, at the peak of the economic crisis, to 7.2 percent in April 2011.
