Labour market and the charasteristics of unemployment in Kosovo

• Main Author: MSc. Artan Haziri
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Felix-Verlag 2011-12-01
• Series: ILIRIA International Review
• Subjects: labour market; unemployment; economic development; Kosovo
• Online Access: http://iliriapublications.org/index.php/iir/article/view/189
• ISSN: 2192-7081; 2365-8592

Kosovo, given its difficult past, is the most underdeveloped country of Europe. Gross national product is the lowest in the region, in 2009 was 1853 Euros per capita, which is half the value of the average gross natio-nal product of the region. Average economic growth in Kosovo during 2006-2009 was 4.8%. This economic growth, although seemingly large, given the low level of development in Kosovo cannot solve problems to address important economic issues that Kosovo faces, unemployment, poverty etc. Kosovo has a large import of goods and the export-import cover is only 10%, thus the trade deficit is extremely high. Unemploy-ment remains the main economic problem for many years in Kosovo. The unemployment rate in Kosovo remains high even though there are no clear statistics about the rate of unemployment. According to many stu-dies, whether local or international institutions, the unemployment rate ranges near 40%. So this high rate of unemployment  imposes as a pri-mary and essential task before the Kosovo institutions to establish poli-cies and strategies for promoting employment which is undoubtedly the best way to combat poverty.According to many studies, in order to keep the unemployment at current levels, Kosovo needs a growth rate of 7% and therefore we conclude that in order to reduce unemployment, the growth should be significantly increased over 7%, and with current developments this is unachievable, neither it is expected to be achieved by the competent institutions regarding economical growth