Ekonomia

Majlinda Bregu: May 1 in unusual conditions and what should be done to "cure" Youth unemployment in the Western Balkans

Çfarë bënë parukierët nëse flokët me model nuk ishin më të rëndësishme për njerëzit që qëndruan mbyllur në shtëpitë e tyre, kur klientët u izoluan? Apo kur sallonet e tyre thjesht u mbyllën? Çfarë do bëjnë ofruesit e shërbimeve të turizmit, nëse udhëtimet shndërrohen në të rrezikshme për shëndetin? Duhet të gjejnë modele të reja për bizneset e tyre për të mbijetuar.

Majlinda Bregu: May 1 in unusual conditions and what should be done to

It is the second year that May 1, Labor Day is remembered in pandemic conditions, not only is health threatened, but now the vaccine is seeing more consequences in the workplace.

Majlinda Bregu in an Op-Ed shows that there is news that can be called good: Stabilization of the unemployment curve, which means that the region has not seen growth. But, the important question is how are we going to do to find jobs that still risked the pandemic, and there are many, how can we orient ourselves to professions that have long been coming to an end, but the pandemic accelerated them.

What is the survival we must ensure (read in full):

About a quarter of young people in the Western Balkans are NEETs - neither employed nor in the process of education or training (2019 data). Moreover, out of the total registered unemployed at the end of February 2021, 173,031 are young people, under the age of 24, which accounts for more than 12% of all registered unemployed.

"I believe a lot in luck and I see the more I work, the luckier I feel."

Thomas Jefferson

We all like to look at May 1 - Labor Day as an important celebration of labor rights, but also as a fun day to enjoy nature, and everyone hoped last year that this day would return glorious. But this is the 2nd year in a row that May 1 comes under completely unusual circumstances, dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic. And who knows, have we still seen everything we have to see…

What we have seen and understood so far is the importance of the health sector and the hard work that health workers around the world are doing to tackle the pandemic and save our lives. Just as quickly, we also realized that we can adjust and change our habits at wind speed to best respond to the crisis. For the lucky ones, who were able to keep their job by simply switching office with home, or in other words 'living at work', it meant a new lifestyle mixed between work and home at the same time. For some job positions it was very difficult to adapt to the new reality of physical distancing, working at a distance, isolation, etc. By that I mean - what did hairdressers do if patterned hair was no longer relevant to people who remained locked in their homes when clients were isolated? Or when their salons just closed? What will tourism service providers do if travel becomes dangerous to health? They need to find new models for their businesses to survive.

In the Western Balkans (WB) many people, as in the rest of the world, have spent the past year and more, learning how to protect their work and life. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, labor markets in the Balkans were characterized by relatively high unemployment levels (between 10.9% in Serbia and 25.2% in Kosovo * in 2019), especially compared to the EU; High passivity (varies between 59.5% in Kosovo * and 39.4% in Albania in 2019); Low levels of employment with a significant proportion of temporary contracts and informal employment (between 18% and 30%, depending on BP economy and a resource). Also, one of the distinguishing features of unemployment in our region was a high number of long-term unemployment. This is how Korona hit us…

Let's see what the RCC ESAP Observatory figures show: At the end of February 2021, the total number of registered, cumulative unemployed in the BP6 economies was over 1.4 million citizens, compared to February 2020, when this figure was around 1.24 million citizens. Simple math shows that from February 2020 to February 2021 there was an increase in the total stock of unemployed registered in the Western Balkans of about 164,500 citizens, which is about 13.2% increase in the total number of registered unemployed in this period 12 months. These figures for BP economies hide significant individual differences, for each country from BP6. In some economies, there has been almost no increase in registered unemployment in this period,

When there has not been a large increase in the number of registered as unemployed, the labor market may have adapted to the economic shocks caused by COVID-19 by reducing working hours or wages or distance work for employees, rather than by removing from puna. And although these regulatory mechanisms helped workers keep their current jobs and avoid a significant increase in unemployment, these mechanisms may cause a reduction in the total wage for workers, especially workers with low education and low skills, such as shows ILO research. Moreover, such workers tend to be over-represented in sectors that were even most affected by the pandemic (such as the tourism sector, wholesale and retail trade, transportation and storage, etc.). And then there are those workers in the gray area,

We can continue to list all the weaknesses of our job markets that got their ugly head out during this crisis, but there is no need to do so. Each of us has at least one family member or friend whose work was endangered by the pandemic.

And what does it have to say about youth?

About a quarter of young people in the Western Balkans are NEET - neither employed nor in the process of education or training (2019 data). Moreover, out of the total registered unemployed at the end of February 2021, 173,031 are young people, under 24 years old, accounting for more than 12% of all registered unemployed. And finally, there is the 'brain drain' of young people - a well-known demographic challenge for our region. Does anyone need to be more convinced that we need to act to give young people a job opportunity?

Given the apparent need to act, we need to aim hard - for the BP Youth Guarantee. Youth Guarantee means employment, education, training or internship opportunities for them. Specifically, in the Western Balkans, the RCC ESAP 2 project has conducted an analytical, comprehensive study on youth employment in six Western Balkan economies, with 6 individual roadmaps for each country; This report and six policy guides were shared with the 6 BP governments, most recently. We at RCC are ready to support our government partners to have the Youth Guarantee for our region and other youth programs, generating better job opportunities for young people.

Let us learn from this crisis and let us use this as an opportunity for the recovery process to build a better world of work. To create a labor market as an environment of dialogue, equal opportunities, safe and secure place in which we thrive while providing income for ourselves, our families, our communities and our society. Simply put - decent work!

Let us all work together to defeat the common health threat and recover jobs!

Stay healthy, protect yourself and others!

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