TIRANA, May 11 – With about 102,000 young people officially jobless, youth unemployment at a record 32 percent has become a hot topic in Albania, with youngsters blaming lack of opportunities and experts and politicians putting the blame on the mismatch between the education system and job market needs.
Twenty-four-year-old Elona, who has graduated in English and worked for a short time in one of the booming call centers in Tirana, says she has been unable to find a job for the past six months and is seriously considering moving to an EU country for a permanent job.
“We should have already left, but one of my boyfriend’s parents is seriously ill and this has prevented us. Otherwise, we are hopeless that we can work and lead a normal life here in Albania. This way, I could also help my family of six who lead a difficult life here in Tirana in a small rented apartment,” the young woman told Deutsche Welle in the local Albanian service.
Professor Kosta Bajraba, an expert in employment and migration issues, says Albania’s youth unemployment is both structural and cyclical.
By definition, structural unemployment is caused by shifts in the economy, improvement in technology and workers’ lack of prerequisite job skills, which makes it difficult for them to find employment. Conversely, swings in companies’ business cycles cause cyclical unemployment usually in job losses during downturns and contractions.
Professor Barjaba says the reduction of cyclical youth unemployment can be achieved by re-orienting the economy toward a model which creates new jobs by making use of the country’s natural resources and the advantages the country offers. Meanwhile, structural unemployment can be further curbed with the ongoing reform in the modernization of the education system and the strengthening of vocational training education by also involving the private sector in this battle.
“Albanian enterprises have been reluctant to hire youngsters because of lack of experience and extra costs in their training. There has also been an asymmetry between market needs for young workers and the sectors where the young studied,” says Barjaba.
“We have mainly offered youngsters the university supply, mainly outdated and not matching market needs, which simply masked and delayed youth unemployment for several years. This has produced structural employment. Young men and women have also been kept out of the labour market by their desire to work in the public sector and less in the private one,” adds Barjaba.
The private sector, which accounts for around 80 percent of Albania’s GDP and employs the overwhelming majority of four-fifths of the country’s population, has frozen wage increases during the past crisis years, losing its competitiveness to the smaller public sector, according to state-statistical office, INSTAT.
Irena Topalli of the the Beyond Barriers Association, says promoting vocational training education, social businesses and incentives for young entrepreneurs could reduce current high youth jobless rates.
“Failure to find a job leads to a devaluation of human capital, but even increased risks for some issues such as stress, depression, and lower self-confidence,” she says.
A recent job fair in Tirana reportedly offered 8,000 jobs but there were no data on the number of people hired.
Prime Minister Edi Rama says the country’s employment offices are currently offering 31,000 jobs but almost half of the registered jobseekers lack of profession and have completed only compulsory education.
In 2015, youngsters aged between 15 to 29, out of employment and neither attending school, nor any other vocational training accounted for 32.8 percent of total youth. In this group, 40.8 percent of the youngsters are jobless, the remaining 15.2 percent are out of the labour market because of being discouraged, 17.5 percent are fulfilling family duties and obligations and 36.5 are jobless for unspecified other reasons, according to INSTAT.
With youth unemployment at around 33 percent, the booming call center business and the traditional garment and footwear manufacturing are emerging as two of the key employers for Albanian young men and women aged from 15 to 29.
While the call center business dominated by Italian companies mainly attracts university students and newly graduates who are unable to find a job in the occupation they have graduated in, the faà§on industry, a traditional employer producing garment and footwear mainly for export, is attracting a considerable number of youngsters who have finished only the compulsory education or secondary education but failed to attend university.
With Albania’s average population age at 31, one of the youngest in Europe along with Kosovo, youth unemployment has become a top concern although most young men and women nowadays manage to get a university degree, unveiling the inefficiency of the education system but also crisis impacts as the private sector has almost frozen new hirings.
Albania’s high unemployment rate at 17.5 percent and low wages with the minimum monthly wage at only 22,000 lek (€158) was one of the key reasons for an asylum exodus in 2015.
Over 65,000 Albanians applied for asylum in EU countries last year accounting for 5 percent of asylum claims filed in 2015, according to Eurostat data. Germany was the most attractive destination for Albanian asylum seekers with 53,805 asylum claims registered, or 12 percent of all asylum seekers in Germany, the second highest number after Syria.
A considerable number of the asylum-seekers were disappointed jobless youngsters, even holding university degrees.
