Kosovo

Despite difficult postwar conditions and abnormal circumstances during most of the 1990s, Kosovo�s labor market is on its way to functioning normally. Stimulated by institutional flexibility and liberal wage determination framework, employment has rebounded to pre-war levels, but unemployment rate is still large.

Actually employment is a major challenge for policy makers in Kosovo. People in Kosovo think of �work� as essentially only formal employment. Working in the informal sector or in a family business, are not considered to be �work� even though they obtain income from these activities.

Private sector employment takes place almost exclusively in small firms. Employment is particularly concentrated in the agriculture, retail and construction sectors and where it is assumed a significant proportion of those employed in a lively grey economy are expected to be operating.

- Legislation -
Since 2001 till now the rights of workers in Kosovo are being protected and guaranteed by Regulation 2001/27 on Essential Labour Law in Kosovo. The Regulation 2001/27 foresees the written form for the employment contract. The contract has to detail the nature, type and place of work as well as working hours, duration, base salary and any additional entitlement. The law also provides the grounds for employer's termination of the contract, while the Labor Inspectorate is responsible for monitoring the implementation of occupational health and safety practices.

Till the adaptation of this Regulation workers were facing a lack of legal protection at a very high level of unemployment, were in an extremely vulnerable position. According to several reports, they were �employed, hired and fired� in the absence of observance of any legal regulations. In such a context, there was the permanent danger that the observance of basic rights at work was also dependent on the considerations of the employers. The lack of representation and voice were more pronounced in the informal economy and mostly among women and young workers.

On 22 September 2004, representatives of Government of Kosovo, Kosova Trade Union (BSPK), and Kosova Chamber of Commerce (KCC), signed General Collective Agreement, which was considered to regulate the legal, social and economic relationships, and the rights and obligations between employers and employees and later to be amplified with the Labor Law. This agreement was never applied, due to the lack of budged.

- Trade-unions -
However, till the present time, The Union of Independent Trade Unions of Kosova (BSPK) seemed to be the only organization dealing with the situation of workers. It has been formed in order to articulate workers� demands and to express these in an organized manner.

BSPK also takes responsibility for the recognition and realization of the values of civilization: freedom of occupation; the right to work; social security for workers and their families; a higher standard of living; and better working and living conditions.

Recently, another similar organization was formed, almost from the people who were not satisfied with the work and commitment of BSPK.

However, even when there is place for discontent about their position, workers and their syndicates have shown patience with their demands, as Kosovo is being prepared for a decision on final status and because of tense situation. This is considered as a factor, that till now there were no big protests and strikes of workers to mention, despite many problems they face. It is now accepted that youth unemployment was a causal factor behind the serious civil disturbances of March 2004.

Another factor, according to some researches, is that workers (especially young workers) in the informal economy were, by and large, unaware of their rights at work.

According to analysts, the preparation and distribution of information material describing workers' rights and the provision of legal advice by trade unions could have supported efforts to enforce rights at work. Such activities should have also emphasized the benefits of labor standards in terms of improved workers' performance and productivity.

- Unemployment -
The sudden end of the post-war boom has brought into sharp focus Kosovo�s most important social problem: underemployment of a young and rapidly growing population.

According to researchers, discussions of Kosovo�s �real unemployment rate� are often misleading. �Unemployment� is an administrative category that measures the number of those who are actively looking for work but fail to find it. In societies where unemployment status confers benefits, there are clear incentives for people to register.

In Kosovo, there are no such benefits. Furthermore, in much of rural Kosovo, the notion of actively looking for work outside the household makes little sense. Almost all the businesses are run by families.

The total employment figure for Kosovo is only 325,000, where the working age population is around one million. This means that the employment rate (i.e. the numbers employed expressed as a percentage of the working age population) is less than a third.

At the same time, Kosovo has the youngest population in Europe, with 36,000 young people pressing onto the labor market every year.

- Some Statistics of unemployment in Kosovo �
- In total 318,390 persons registered as unemployed with the Kosovan public employment services until the end of 2005 � representing an increase of 5,7% compared to 2004. - The registered unemployed represent a registered unemployment rate in a range of 42,0% to 43,7% out of the economically active population in 2005. - About 86% to 94% of the registered unemployed are long-term unemployed. - More than 46% of the registered unemployed are women. The number of female registrations increased by 7,1% in 2005, while the increase was 4,5% for the male registrations. - More than 59% of the registered unemployed refer to the educational level �unskilled� (ISCED 0-2).

- Problems and solutions -
In the past, the problem of rapid population growth and chronic underemployment has been met by substantial emigration, mainly to Germany and Switzerland. The route to further emigration to these destinations is now largely closed. This will have two effects on Kosovo society. In the short term, it means that Kosovo�s young people have no way of escaping from the poverty of the rural areas. In the longer term, it is likely to mean a tapering off of remittance income and a substantial increase in poverty, as the Diaspora is no longer replenished with fresh emigration.

According to a study �Towards a Kosovo Development Plan�, prepared by John Bradley and Gerald Knaus from European Stability Initiative, every person employed in Kosovo is obliged to support five or six household members. In this environment, making household savings to finance business investments becomes extremely difficult.

In many ways, the notion of a flexible labor market which is increasingly the hallmark of more developed market economies and a central feature of the EU�s employment strategy has already been institutionalized in Kosovo. While this factor may be expected to pay off in the medium to long-term as enterprises become more competitive, in the near term, Kosovo�s labor market, set against low wages (average monthly wage is approximately �190) and a negligible social protection system, according to experts is characterized more by precariousness than flexibility.

While creating a situation of full employment for Kosovo�s young people in the short to medium term will not be possible, Sharing Enterprise in Training suggest a number of measures (requiring external assistance to establish and support, at least initially) that could go some way to easing the unemployment tension:
- retaining young people within the education system by developing tertiary/ non-university education options
- introducing youth-specific and targeted vocational training provision clearly referenced to existing skills gaps
- further development of non-statutory training and employment support services for young people to fill gaps and locations where the public employment services have difficulty reaching
- developing alternative employment schemes (e.g. community voluntary service) to enhance civic responsibility and self-initiative amongst young people and where training and career development guidance are central features of the provision etc.

Labor has always been at its core a human rights movement - after all, labor rights flow from universal human rights, such as freedom of association. Organized labor has always been about more than simply a vehicle for the negotiation of wages, benefits and conditions of labor. Nevertheless, even it is said that labor market in Kosovo is on its way to functioning normally, everybody perceive that we have to undertake a long trip to achieve this point.