Author: Tatyana Gracheva

Human Capital Chartbook establishes reforms of the labor market, social benefits system, with human capital trends and education funding key priorities in Ukraine for 2026

According to the data, there were 10.2 million pensioners, 1.7 million veterans (2.4 times more than in 2021), 3.6 million people with disabilities, and 4.6 million internally displaced persons with 10.7 million workers in Ukraine in 2025. This significantly increases the demand for financial support from the state in recent years. However, the number of […]

Jobless rate in Serbia rises to 8.9% in Q4

As the statistical office said on Friday, Serbia’s unemployment rate rose by 0.7 percentage points (pp) quarter-on-quarter to 8.9% in the last three months of 2025.
According to a statement of the statistical office, the increase of the jobless rate in the review period is 0.3 pp, compared with the fourth quarter of 2024.
Previously, the employment rate reached 50.5% in October-December, down by 0.8 pp quarter-on-quarter and lower by 0.9 pp on the year.
Also, the statistical office reported that there were 2,828,200 employed and 276,900 unemployed people in the country in the fourth quarter of 2025.
In total, Serbia’s active population aged 15 and over in the period under review, stood at 3.1 million, while total population of the country was 5.6 million.

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Skilled Migrants will become the focus of Kazakhstan’s new migration policy

A more pragmatic migration policy aligned with the needs of the national economy is Kazakhstan’s choice nowadays. As a result, attracting in-demand highly skilled professionals and encouraging internal migration to regions experiencing labor shortages are priorities of Migration Policy Concept through 2030, newly approved by the government.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection reports that the number of foreign labor migrants in Kazakhstan reached 16,100 in 2025.
According to Minister of Labor Askarbek Yertayev, assessment of the professional qualifications of foreign workers will have a greater importance. So, specialists with relevant education, work experience, and competencies will have priority in the domestic labor market. They expect the share of skilled workers among labor migrants to increase to 95% by 2030.
Notably, a pilot project on the digital platform migration Enbek.kz has been launched by the ministry to support these objectives. They will introduce a comprehensive scoring system to evaluate applicants when issuing permanent residence permits and granting kandas status, a designation for ethnic Kazakhs returning to their historical homeland.
Also, revising fees for hiring foreign labor, tightening regulation of private employment agencies, and formally integrating the digital scoring mechanism into migration decision-making processes are included in a draft law.
Official data reports that the government has set a quota for attracting foreign workers at 0.25% of the total national workforce in 2026.
However, China, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and India remain the main countries of origin for officially employed foreign nationals.
Simultaneously, measures to manage internal migration are being strengthening. This made 14.7% of participants in state-supported interregional resettlement programs relocate to northern regions of the country in 2025.
Another negative effect is exacerbation of territorial imbalances, because young people from less economically developed regions prefer to relocate to major cities such as Almaty and Astana.

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