TIRANA, Dec. 1 – The Albanian government has drafted a new law that will discipline “lazy” jobseekers by stripping them of their unemployment benefits if they refuse jobs offered by state offices.
In a bill already approved by the government and pending the final okay in Parliament, jobseekers registered with state employment offices will have their unemployment and social assistance benefits lifted if they refuse a suitable job opportunity even for single time.
Currently, there are some 152,000 jobseekers registered with Albania’s employment offices, of whom only 43 percent benefit monthly employment assistance of up to 4,600 lek (€33) and 5 percent benefit unemployment assistance of 6,850 lek (€49).
Field verifications have shown that a considerable number of jobseekers register with employment offices only to benefit assistance and are not interested in real employment opportunities, officials say.
“This draft law will be an efficient tool to lift jobseekers who don’t want to work out of the assistance system by offering opportunities of vocational training in order to make them active in the labor market,” says the bill.
Albania’s unemployment rate slightly dropped to 17 percent at the end of the second quarter of 2015, down from 17.2 a year ago and a record high of 18.2 percent in the first quarter of 2014.
Meanwhile, youth unemployment hit a record high of 34.2 percent, unveiling the inefficiency of the education system but also crisis impacts as the private sector has almost frozen new hirings.
With university degrees not matching market needs, the Albanian government is promoting vocational education training whose students stand better chances to find a job.
