INSTAT: Private sector keeps unemployment stable

TIRANA, March 5 – Albania’s official unemployment rate slightly dropped in the final quarter of 2012 when it fell to 13.26 percent, down from 13.32 percent in the previous quarter and 13.29 percent in the final quarter of 2011. The private sector known as the private non-agricultural sector was the key driver of the slight drop in unemployment rates at a time when the public sector made new job cuts while the number of those self-employed in the agriculture sector has been revised downward. Despite crisis impacts, the private sector hired an extra 5,400 people in the final quarter of 2012 increasing its labour force to 278,000 people. Meanwhile, the public administration cut 400 jobs to 164,000. In the third quarter of 2012, INSTAT reviewed downward the number of people employed in the agriculture sector who are automatically calculated as self-employed because of possessing land. In the third quarter of 2012, INSTAT reports 485,408 people employed in agriculture, down from 506,664 in the past two years “The average number of people employed in the private agriculture sector from the third quarter of 2010 until the second quarter of 2012 has been calculated based on the 2009 labour force survey and since the third quarter of 2012 it has been calculated based on the 2010 labour survey,” INSTAT explains.
The unemployment rate was kept at almost the same levels only thanks to the private sector which in the final quarter of 2012 had hired an extra 17,339 people compared to the final quarter of 2011
Average monthly wages in the public sector grew by 7.3 percent to 51,500 lek in the final quarter of the year while the minimum wage also rose by 1,000 lek to 21,000 lek.
The public sector provides only 17.7 percent of total employment in Albania. The private non-agricultural sector accounts for 27.6 percent while the private agricultural sector has a 47 percent share.
INSTAT data are often criticized as unreliable due to the methodology calculating people living in rural areas possessing land as self-employed and taking into account only those people who register themselves as unemployed with state agencies. Albania’s official jobless rates are slightly higher compared to more prosperous Croatia, Turkey, Montenegro, but three times lower to also EU potential candidate Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2.3 times lower compared to neighbouring EU candidate Macedonia, and almost twice higher compared to Serbia, all of which have a higher GDP per capita compared to Albania, according to the EC and Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU.
According to INSTAT, only 6 percent of the total registered jobless people in Albania benefit unemployment assistance of 6,850 lek (64.5 USD), which is enough to keep only a single person below the poverty line of USD 2 a day.
What’s particular about the final quarter statistics is that the number of officially registered jobless people dropped by 1,195 people compared to the final quarter of 2011. INSTAT reports some 141,755 people registered with state employment agencies at the end of the final quarter of 2012, compared to 142,950 a year ago. Although no official explanation is made about the reduction of the those registered as unemployed who could have been found a job, the smaller number of jobseekers registered with employment agencies at a time when the number of jobseekers even holding a diploma is on the rise unveils the lack of confidence in these institutions. The number of people getting unemployment assistance in the final quarter of 2012 was also cut by 931 people in the final quarter of 2012.