Category: Author’s post

The Balkans have shortage in local workforce

Low wages and stalled EU membership cause the chronic lack of workforce in the Balkans, which is especially noticeable in Montenegro in the midst of the summer season. The country, being heavily reliant on tourism as a primary source of income, is struggling to find local labour. Many young people are seeking better jobs in EU states, especially in neighbouring Croatia. Meanwhile, the number of foreigners entering Montenegro increases. The number of Russians arriving to Serbia to live and work there since the start of the war in Ukraine is also increasing. This country seems to them to be an ideal place to start a new life due to its traditional close ties with Moscow. According to the Serbian Interior Ministry, more than 200,000 Russians have arrived in the country over the last two years, and many of them plan to stay.

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The visa regime and consular cooperation between Kazakhstan and Austria are to be simplified

DKnews.kz reports a meeting between Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alibek Bakayev and Secretary General of the Austrian Foreign Ministry Nikolaus Marschik in Vienna.
The prospects for the development of Kazakh-Austrian relations, in particular the importance of organizing reciprocal visits at the high and highest levels interlocutors, were discussed.
Bakayev expressed Astana’s commitment to the peaceful settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and Kazakhstan’s readiness to provide a platform for relevant contacts if requested and discussed the results of the SCO Summit held in Astana on 4 July this year.
The prospects for cooperation between the two countries, as well as Kazakhstan’s active work in international organizations and its balanced approach to world issues were highly appreciated by Marschik.
The regular Kazakh-Austrian consular consultations took place on the same day. Deputy Minister Bakayev headed the Kazakh delegation, while Georg Stillfried, Head of the Consular Department of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, led the Austrian delegation.
The sides exchanged views on draft intergovernmental agreements on visa exemption for holders of diplomatic passports and readmission and discussed issues of simplification of the visa regime of EU countries for citizens of Kazakhstan. The Kazakh delegation expects Austria to initiate official negotiations between Kazakhstan and the European Union.
The parties also discussed prospects for cooperation between the two countries in the field of migration and the fight against human trafficking and confirmed their willingness to further strengthen cooperation in the consular field.

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Strike of thousands at Georgia’s major student employer

Demand of a pay raise and proper working conditions made more than 4,000 workers at Evolution Georgia, an online casino known for employing a large number of Georgian students, go on strike on July 12.
The company employs “about 16,000+ people in studios across Europe and North America,” half of which, up to 8,000 employees, could be working from “Evolution Georgia”, opened in 2018. They are mostly local students seeking employment to make ends meet.
The official wage policy reports that a full-time entry-level job as a game presenter can earn up to GEL 900 (USD 329) net per month for day shifts and GEL 1225 (USD 450) for night shifts.
But the workers say that the net hourly wages range from GEL 3 (USD 1) for shufflers to GEL 5 (USD 1.8) for game presenters, and an important part of their salaries consists of bonuses of GEL 300-400 (USD 110-145) per month that they could easily lose due to unforeseen circumstances. Workers have to sit upright for hours on uncomfortable chairs, under bright lights and cameras pointed at them, with poor air conditioning.
Launching strikes legally is notoriously complicated in Georgia, so, this one is called “historic.” The company management is trying to prevent the workers from joining the action. The Georgian Public Defender’s office has issued a statement citing widespread practices of employers resorting to “harassment of workers based on dissenting opinions, dismissals, or other types of violations of labor rights” when faced with worker dissatisfaction.
According to Evolution Georgia, the majority of workers continue to work.
Georgian workers struggle nationwide to secure better working conditions. Young people are also searching to protect their political and social rights.
Georgian students have never had an easy life, but the economic shocks of recent years made it even worse. It became more difficult to afford to study in Tbilisi for students hailing from outside the capital, which has led to repeated protests at Georgian universities.
Some observers have come to suggestion that the problem of Evolution Georgia goes far beyond the dimension of labor rights: thousands of students were flocking to gambling companies, due to lack of better alternatives.
According to Guro Imnadze of the Social Justice Center, a Georgian progressive NGO, working in online casinos, call centers, and similar fields leads to “exhausted, exploited, non-professional workers who have nowhere to go but to another similar sector that continues to exploit and exhaust such people”.
He reminds about the state’s responsibility to ensure the proper functioning of the labor market, which requires reforming education, vocational training, and student employment programs.

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EC reports moderate preparation of Serbia in the field of employment

According to the report of the European Commission, the unemployment rate on the Serbian labor market has decreased in compared to the same period in the fourth quarter of 2022.
A great importance for the assessment of labor and social rights in Serbia, as well as for the functioning of the local labor market, is attributed to the report of the European Commission (EC). The EC reports that the country is moderately prepared in terms of social policy and employment. First of all, it praised Serbia for some progress in relation to last year’s recommendations with the adoption of the new Law on Safety and Health at Work, which is partially aligned with the legal legislation of the European Union.
However, with regard to labor legislation, the country hasn’t fully aligned amendments to the Labor Law of 2014 with European Union law and has to begin the work on the draft of the new Labor Law, including provisions for foreign posted workers in accordance with EU law, in order to avoid further delay of the implementation of the Chapter 19 action plan. Meanwhile, they haven’t passed the new Strikes Act yet, and it needs to change the legal framework in order to strengthen bipartite and tripartite social dialogue at all levels. As Politika reported, this is especially true if the assessment that the social dialogue in Serbia is assessed as very weak, especially in relation to the participation of the social partners in the development of important policies for them, is taken into account.

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There are over 14,000 foreign workers in Kazakhstan

According to the data of the Kazakh Labor and Special Protection Ministry’s press service from June 1, 2024 cited by Kazinform News Agency, local executive bodies gave work permits to some 13,937 foreign nationals allowing them to legally work in Kazakhstan.
Foreign labor is currently being attracted to Kazakhstan by 1,789 employers. They also employ 443,400 Kazakh citizens which makes 99.2% of the total employees working for them.
The construction sector engages the highest number of foreign employees (4,403 people), then follow agriculture, forestry, and fishery (1,817), administrative and support services (1,684), the mining industry (1,387) and manufacturing (1,275).
China (3,938 people), Uzbekistan (1,919), India (1,145) and Türkiye (1,101) are the countries where most of the labor migrants arrived from.
A quota for attracting foreign specialists to the republic is annually established and distributed by the Labor and Special Protection Ministry in order to protect the domestic labor market. They set the total quota for 2024 at 0.23% of the labor force in the republic, or 22 jobs.

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The document for employment without a residence permit in Serbia and North Macedonia is issued by the government

The government of Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia approved a document called Open Balkan Charter. It gives free access to the labor market of 12 million inhabitants to any interested individual. The protocol approved by the government and published in the official notebook allows citizens to apply through a special electronic platform set up by […]

Kazakhstan has a million new jobs on the horizon

The task to create employment for around a million citizens this year was given by Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov to his government at a meeting on sustainable employment on June 25. According to Svetlana Zhakupova, Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Population, employment for 948 thousand Kazakhstan citizens must be ensured in […]

Economic gains are unlocked by Kazakhstan’s working-age population growth

Nearly all societal support systems are impacted by the evolution of Kazakhstan’s demographic landscape: the labor and consumer markets, the education, healthcare and pension systems.
The first change over the past decade is the decrease of the proportion of working-age citizens within the population from 64% in 2011 to 57.7% in 2023. Also, the rise of the share of children from 26.1% to 31.2% and the increase of the share of the older generation from 9.9% to 11.4% have been recorded.
Nevertheless, the share of the working-age population has been declining slower in recent years due to a high birth rate the 2000s.
The second change is the decline of the share of women in the population structure (51.8% of women and 48.2% of men in 2011). A decrease by 0.6% was shown by the share of women by early 2023 due to the increasing number of citizens below working age with a higher rate of the male population (48.6% women and 51.4% men as of early 2023).
The third change is an aging population that the northeast and central regions of the country are facing due to low natural population growth and negative net migration. North Kazakhstan (18.6% at the beginning of 2023), East Kazakhstan (19.3%) and Kostanai (16.8%) have the highest proportions of elderly residents. On the contrary, the youngest populations can be found in the Turkistan and Mangystau regions.
It shows that the country’s current demographic situation is quite favorable and provides substantial internal resources for the labor market and the overall economy.
An economic advantage that a country can gain due to shifts in the age structure of its population is referred to by the concept of a “demographic dividend” or “demographic bonus”.
Notable examples of effectively leveraging the demographic dividend are offered by Southeast Asia in global practice. According to experts’ estimation, the “economic miracle” experienced by the East Asian Tigers, accounting for between one-quarter and two-fifths of their economic growth during the 1980s and 1990s, was significantly contributed to by this demographic advantage.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reports the soaring of the Republic of Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 2,200% from 1950 to 2008. Nevertheless, as the example of Brazil shows, favorable demographic trends do not always lead to GDP growth. Consequently, capitalizing on emerging development opportunities for addressing demographic challenges should be one of the main tasks of socio-economic policy.
This article was written by Anna Alshanskaya, the head of Department of Economic Policy and Analysis at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan (KazISS).

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Serbia and RMV, a joint labor market in Albania and “visa-free” workers in Open Balkans

The Open Balkans Agreement for a common labor market allows Albanian citizens to work in Serbia and North Macedonia.
According to this agreement between Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia, citizens can go to work without obstacles and paper bureaucracy in any of the two countries they are not residents of.
They launched the initiative to keep employees in the region at one of the Open Balkans summits in December 2021, and the governments of the three countries are already finalizing it to allow citizens to work and live freely in each of the states.
The agreement states that a personal identification number is necessary for citizens of Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia, who want to be employed in one of the members of the Open Balkans or have already found an employer. It is possible to register electronically, initially with a form on the e-Government platform, and with an identification document to get this number.
A request for free access to the labor market can be submitted by the interested part on the e-government portal of a given country.
The population of the three countries together is currently estimated at about 11 million inhabitants, and Serbia has 30,000 vacancies for doctors, nurses, craftsmen and technicians. Albanian private service companies also have many empty places, while seasonal employees are mainly accepted in North Macedonia so far. Perhaps, the new approach will make it announce its offers as well.

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Average $175 raise in pay is promised to 37,000 teachers by Georgian PM

An average increase of ₾500 ($174.53) in salaries starting on July 1 was promised to 37,000 teachers across the country (70 percent of the total number working in the profession) by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Monday.
₾800 ($279.25) more in their monthly pay would be received by a “certain category” of teachers.
The continuous character of reforms in education and their extension to all areas of the sphere over the next four years were emphasized by the PM.
As Georgian Education Minister Giorgi Amilakhvari told the country’s Parliament last week, his office’s plans for the national general education system aimed to “strengthen patriotism, national spirit, national identity, state thinking, respect for the family institution and general and universal values in students”.
According to him, the first approval of an updated vision was marked by the plan since 2004, following “extensive discussions” and “active involvement” of schools. The plan included MPs strengthening the autonomy of general educational institutions and providing schools with “more academic freedom”.
Construction and renovation of over 170 schools at a total cost of ₾915 million ($319.40mln) was additionally announced by the Minister.

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