Young people in the Western Balkans

This report describes the employment and social situation of young people in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – the WB6) and also looks at employment in Türkiye.
 

It focuses on young people because they were particularly hard hit by COVID‐19. It disrupted the quality and quantity of their education and training, and many lost their jobs. As elsewhere, the crisis disproportionately impacted young people’s well-being in the WB6 and Türkiye.
 

Policy context

On 8 November 2023, the European Commission presented a new growth plan for the WB6. The plan provides opportunities to boost socioeconomic convergence in the region and offers significant additional financial support. It aims to bring forward some of the economic benefits to the pre-accession period to build stronger, more resilient economies and provide day-to-day economic benefits for businesses, workers and consumers alike. The plan covers a broad range of topics that will help improve the situation of young people in the WB6.
 

In 2021, the governments of the WB6 made a commitment to adopt, test and mainstream Youth Guarantee schemes to address long-standing challenges of youth joblessness and social exclusion risks. In these countries, the importance of implementing Youth Guarantee schemes, modelled on the European Youth Guarantee, is highlighted by evidence which shows that most countries that implemented measures to support youth employment during the COVID-19 pandemic already had a national youth employment strategy.
 

The 2017 European Pillar of Social Rights set out 20 principles to guide the Member States ‘towards a strong social Europe that is fair, inclusive and full of opportunity’. The Pillar is being delivered through a wide-ranging set of policy packages alongside the implementation of plans for a just transition towards a climate-neutral and digitalised society.
 

Key findings – the Western Balkans and Türkiye in statistics

• Throughout the region, employment rates are lower for young people aged 15 to 24 than for the total working-age population (15–64).
   
• The difference between youth and working-age employment levels is larger in the WB6 than it is in Türkiye and the European Union (EU) as a whole.
   
• In all seven countries, the youth employment rate is lower among women than among men. This is most accentuated in Türkiye.
   
• While overall unemployment levels have come closer to the EU average in recent years, this change is less pronounced for young people aged 15 to 24, among whom unemployment remains a pressing issue.
   
• Although the countries have experienced some progress in reducing youth unemployment, the potential effects of increasing inactivity in the labour market alongside growing emigration trends render the extent of progress that has been achieved difficult to measure.
   
• The proportion of young people aged 15 to 24 not in employment, education or training (NEET) differs widely within the seven countries, and ranges from 13 % in Serbia to 33 % in Kosovo.
   
• In Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia, NEET rates have risen substantially, whereas in the other countries such rates have fallen over time. Türkiye has shown the most improvement over time, although young people in the country still face significant challenges, especially young women.
   
• Young people in the WB6 and Türkiye are significantly more likely to take up temporary work than workers aged 25–64 in the region.
   
• Compared with the EU average, self-employment is a much more prominent trend in the labour market of the WB6 and Türkiye.
   

Key findings – the Western Balkans in the EWCTS 2021

• The WB6 have made headway in certain aspects of job quality. This is demonstrated by the high numbers of young respondents to the European Working Conditions Telephone Survey (EWCTS) 2021 who indicated that their jobs were highly resourced and less extremely demanding, often surpassing the EU benchmark.
   
• Young workers in the WB6 are much more likely to receive social support at work and, in most countries, are significantly more engaged in the work that they do. Despite overt challenges, young workers appear more content and can adapt to changes in their workplace.
   
• The region still faces some key issues, working time arrangements being one of them. A much more sizeable proportion of young workers work more than 48 hours per week in the Western Balkans than in the EU.
   
• Women’s work lies more at the extreme ends of job quality than men’s. Some notable issues pertain to job intensity, where evidence indicates that young women work at considerably higher speeds than young men. Issues also persist in gender segregation in the workplace, despite improvements.
   

Key findings – Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia in the 2022 Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey

• The 2022 e-survey results point to worryingly low levels of mental well-being among respondents in these three Western Balkan countries, particularly in Albania and Kosovo. Over half of the respondents aged 15 to 29 were shown to be at risk of depression. Overall, young respondents in these three countries were significantly more likely to feel excluded from society and reported significantly lower life satisfaction than their EU counterparts.
   
• Around half of young respondents in North Macedonia feel optimistic, compared with around one-quarter in Albania (25 %) and just under one-third in Kosovo (31 %). Conversely, only 6 % of young respondents in North Macedonia expressed optimism about the future of their country. In Albania, only around one-third of young respondents are optimistic about the future of their country and in Kosovo this feeling is expressed only by one-quarter of young respondents.
   
• The proportion of young respondents expressing work–life balance strain is far above the EU average in these three countries, and especially in Albania and Kosovo. The hours young respondents spend looking after children are also significantly higher in these three Western Balkan countries than they are on average among young EU respondents.
   
• Financial difficulties affect large proportions of young respondents, particularly in Albania and Kosovo, and in all three countries the figures are far above the EU average.
   
• Respondents aged 18 to 29 in these three countries are less likely to have access to education and training opportunities than their EU counterparts.
   
• On most indicators and across these three countries, the figures reported by young female respondents are worse than those reported by their male counterparts.
   

Policy pointers

• Targeted active employment measures should be designed for various groups of young people. They require a more tailored and strategic approach, focusing on effective activation policies for the young ‘discouraged’ population, with particular attention given to other vulnerable groups. The Youth Guarantee is a critical policy commitment in the WB6.
   
• Countries could consider introducing or implementing further policies that are aimed at activating young people without higher education.
   
• Countries should be encouraged to develop a systematic approach to career guidance in schools from an early stage. Career guidance should support all, and act as a preventive measure to reduce drop-out rates, enhance academic achievement and attainment, smoothen school-to-work transitions and reduce NEET rates.
   
• Measures are needed to both incentivise employers to provide young people with longer-term secure employment and strengthen the legal instruments to enforce open-ended contracts.
   
• In addition to measures and incentives, social dialogue and partnership should be strengthened to address the root causes of youth unemployment and improve employment conditions.
   
• In many of the WB6 countries and Türkiye, there is a strong preference among young people for public sector employment, which is perceived as more secure and often better paid. Countries should encourage the creation of jobs and/or expansion of employment opportunities in the private sector through taxation and economic incentives.
   
• IPA funds targeted at specific sectors should consider providing assistance to make primary sector jobs (e.g. in farming, mining, forestry) and low-skilled tertiary sector jobs (e.g. in hospitality, healthcare, retail) more rewarding and to improve market access for workers, allowing young people to get jobs where they may apply their skills and knowledge.
   
• The fact that the activity rates of young people are lower than the general population shows that young people are less likely to be in work while in education and training. They also face difficulties in finding a job after completing their education compared to young people in the EU. This can be improved by promoting the availability of part-time work for students and introducing new forms of work.
   
• The labour market participation of young women requires urgent attention. Countries should focus on improving access to childcare, reforming maternity leave policies and increasing paternal leave uptake to ensure care responsibilities are balanced.
   
• The pandemic may have rendered many more young women inactive rather than unemployed. To avoid any further marginalisation or impoverishment of women, there is a need for gender-responsive active labour market measures to reach unpaid (and often statistically invisible) women.
   
• There is a need to improve services that enable and facilitate the school-to-work transition. More effort should be put into career development and counselling for young people entering the labour market.
   
• There is a need for more integrated employment and social policy measures to enhance the labour market participation of vulnerable groups, such as women, rural young people and ethnic or other minorities.
   
• There is a strong need for measures to help improve the mental well-being of young people in the WB6, with a particular focus on helping young women.
   
• In several of the countries, there is a need to improve the accuracy and timeliness of employment statistics.