Poll finds immigration popular among Albanians

TIRANA, Aug 31 – More than a third of Albanians prefer to live abroad in search of a better life, according to a poll by the Gallup Balkans Monitor, published in mid August.
The number is even higher among youth — about 50 percent of them prefer to look for better living conditions abroad.
According to the report, Albania bucks the trend because immigration figures have dropped in the region as a whole. Officials with the Immigration Office at the Ministry of Labor have noted that 44 percent of Albanian households have one or more relatives abroad who assist them financially.
That is normally noted during summer vacations when hundreds of thousands of Albanian immigrants come back, especially from neighboring Greece and Italy. They are also the main source of income for their families.
Immigrants’ remittances make up more than 13 percent of the country’s GDP. There has been a noticed fall recently due to the world global crisis.