Sary-Bulak's 13 new plants create 138 jobs, but only 91 are year-round
District records show two small hydro stations account for IS 22 million of IS 58.6 million invested and employ seven people between them.
SARY-BULAK — Thirteen new small plants opened in Sary-Bulak District between January and September, creating 138 jobs, according to a report issued by the district administration on Monday. District records seen by the Herald show that 91 of those jobs are full-time and year-round. Another 29 are seasonal contracts and 18 are part-time or paid by the piece.
The district's new-enterprise register lists two small hydroelectric stations, two felt and wool-washing workshops, two apricot-drying lines, a brick kiln, a gravel crusher, a joinery, a sheep-feed mill, a bottled spring-water line and a bakery. The administration puts total investment at IS 58.6 million (US$11.7 million). That works out at about IS 424,000 for each job counted, or IS 644,000 for each full-time post.
The two hydro stations, of 1.2 and 0.8 megawatts on side streams of the upper Sary-Suu, account for IS 22 million of the total. Filings with the district registry show that the owner, Sary-Suu Energy, financed them with a IS 12.5 million Talasbank loan, IS 3 million from the Lieutenant Governor's office rural development fund and IS 6.5 million of its own equity. Together the stations employ seven people. The price at which the national dispatch centre buys their output has not been published. The Ministry of Natural Resources had not replied to written questions by deadline.
“A seasonal apricot line and a hydro station are both one 'job' in this arithmetic, but they offer households very different security”Lyudmila Kharitonova
"The number we report is workplaces registered with the district labour office in the quarter of opening," said Erlis Kozubaev, head of the Sary-Bulak District administration. "That includes seasonal contracts of 90 days or more. We separate the categories in the table, and anyone can ask for it." Mr Kozubaev said the headline figure was in line with how the district had reported new jobs since 2021. He added that eleven of the full-time posts are owner-operators registered as employees of their own firms.
At a felt workshop in the district's central village, Chynara Temirbek kyzy, who cuts and stitches shyrdak panels, said her job was real but depended on orders. "We work full days from March to October," she said. "In winter the owner calls us in when there is an order from Talas. The pay is the same per piece, but there are weeks with none."
Lyudmila Kharitonova, an economist at Talas State University, said the district's method was permissible but easy to misread. "A seasonal apricot line and a hydro station are both one 'job' in this arithmetic, but they offer households very different security," she said. She asked for a full-time-equivalent figure and for wages to be published alongside the count. Her other concern was that the figure counts gross openings and not net employment, since it takes no account of posts lost where older workshops closed or shrank. The administration's report gives no closure figures.
Asked about that criticism, Mr Kozubaev said the district did not keep a net figure at the level of individual firms and that closures were recorded separately by the registry. He said the bakery and the sheep-feed mill had replaced two smaller kitchen-scale businesses that were folded into them.
The district says the kiln and the gravel crusher will supply the Sary-Bulak road repair programme next spring. The administration says it will issue a second table of jobs, with winter headcounts, in January. The Talas District Court registry and the district labour office hold the underlying filings, which are open to inspection.
Adapted for the Irad worldbuilding project from real reporting: Kabar.