The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the number of unemployed in Kosovo. So announces the Institute for Advanced Studies GAP.
According to GAP, the economic hardships that came as a result of the pandemic have significantly affected the labor market in Kosovo.
According to the Kosovo Agency of Statistics (KAS), the employment rate fell from 29.1 percent during the first quarter to 24.1 percent during the second quarter of 2020, while unemployment increased by 2.2 percentage points from the first quarter of 2020 by 25 percent in the second quarter by 27.2 percent. “According to the Tax Administration in Kosovo (TAK), the industries that suffered the largest average decline in employees between 2019-2020 were transport and storage with 2,668 employees, public administration with 1,509 employees, trade and repair of motor vehicles with 1,406 employees”, announces GAP Institute.
At the same time, GAP says the number of active jobseekers also increased, in part as a result of the layoffs of a section of the population, as well as the government’s emergency fiscal measures supporting those registered as unemployed at employment centers.
The Institute further states that, according to the Employment Agency in Kosovo (APRK), from March 2020 the number of active jobseekers began to increase significantly, reaching a peak in September with more than 198 thousand jobseekers.
In this research, GAP says that jobseekers are also analyzed according to their characteristics, such as age, gender, and level of education, it turns out that most jobseekers belonged to the age group 25-39 years, men and women were almost equal in number , while in terms of level of education dominated those uneducated and with primary or secondary school.
Furthermore, GAP says that this study also takes into account the challenges and needs of the Employment Agency, which has directly faced the large number of jobseekers throughout 2020.
“In order to improve the labor market in general, the GAP Institute recommends that the Employment Agency in Kosovo have capacity building to enable increased employment, especially for certain and sensitive groups of jobseekers. It is also suggested that APRK continuously have the opportunity to collect more detailed data on the employment status of registered jobseekers and to provide more training or career guidance, especially in those industries where there is expected to be a need for workers.
