Serbia will lack 100,000 workers in the next decade

The Institute for Innovation and Development (IRI) reports that, despite the potential for creating a unified labour market among Western Balkan countries, labour migration within the region is minimal and directed toward European Union countries.
According to an analysis presented at the conference “How to Increase Labour Mobility in the Western Balkans”, the future of the region will be shaped by the labour market. Higher incomes and better working conditions will make Serbian workers move to far more developed EU countries, and Serbia will face a shortage of 80,000 to 100,000 workers in the next decade.
Miodrag Milosavljević, Deputy Director of the Open Society Foundation, acknowledged the impossibility to prevent migration, but he called for a balanced approach between inflow and outflow to ensure continuous development, as a lack of workforce hinders the growth.
Unfortunately, the data from IRI researcher Milica Anđelković Đoković report the persistent outflow of workers to Western Europe.
Dragan Todorović, president of the Independent Union of Belgrade, said that apparently only foreign workers recruited from distant countries who are not intending to stay come to Serbia. They do not work for lower wages than locals but instead face “time-dumping” in their work hours.
Todorović warned that instead of working five days for eight hours, foreign workers work six or seven days for 10 to 12 hours a day, so appear to employers to be more productive. But it actually doesn’t mean a higher productivity, but a simple denial of labour rights. These workers will return home or move on, if they are more educated or resourceful.
Bojan Stanić, Deputy Director for Strategic Analysis at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, noted that solutions are on the horizon, despite the difficult situation. According to him, it is necessary to create regional labour market in the Western Balkans as short-term measures, but even this has its limits, as worker shortages are faced by all regional economies, and no one wants to ‘pull’ workers from another country, diminishing their growth potential. Stanić explained that the solution was to attract returnees, who have been educated or started careers abroad by offering them not only the opportunity to work and earn but also to further develop in a healthy, environmentally-friendly setting.
As Nenad Jevtović added, joint participation in a unified labour market by regional states, drafting National Economic Migration Strategies, as Serbia has done, and improving infrastructure were included in some of IRI’s recommendations. He warned that it is impossible to expect high labour mobility if it takes hours to travel between Skopje and Niš, or if the only efficient way to get from Belgrade to Tirana is by plane.

Source Link