Stanic: Increased interest in jobs in Serbia within the Open Balkan initiative

A month after the implementation of the agreement on free access to the labor market within the "Open Balkan" initiative, the interest of people who gather information through the E-government portal is significantly increasing, Bojan Stanic, Assistant Director of the Strategic Analysis, Services, and Internationalization Sector at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia, says for Kosovo Online. Expectations are that the true impact of this agreement will be visible by the beginning of the summer season, especially in the agriculture, construction, and hospitality sectors.

Stanic explains that the essence of this decision to establish a unified labor market is that there is now an opportunity to find jobs more easily and that people applying for jobs in Serbia are treated as Serbian citizens in terms of job search and access to the labor market.

"What is a fact is that there is a certain interest from workers from North Macedonia and Albania to come and work in Serbia. However, a very short time has passed. What we have as information is that the interest of people gathering information through the E-government portal is significantly increasing, but the number of people directly submitting applications to obtain an identification number is still not significant enough for us to draw conclusions. However, on the other hand, we know that there has been a relatively short time, considering that this started functioning about a month ago," our interlocutor explains.

When it comes to the interest of Serbian citizens in jobs in Albania and North Macedonia, the expectations are lower, as he says.

"That is for a simple reason: the competition for jobs in Serbia is higher, and on the other hand, the possibility of higher earnings exists here," Stanic notes.

Even greater interest from workers from Open Balkan member countries in jobs in Serbia is expected by the beginning of the summer season, when the agricultural season begins and construction continues to intensify regarding all infrastructure projects. Our interviewee believes that the hospitality sector will also be under pressure at that time.

"When the summer months come, many of our workers from the hospitality sector go abroad to work, hence the demand for these workers is much higher during the season. In that sense, it is expected that people in that area will be more sought after and that a certain number of people will decide to try to find a job in Serbia precisely because of this increased demand, which then reflects in higher wages," Stanic says.

He believes that the arrival of workers from North Macedonia and Albania will be significantly influenced by the Expo 2027 project.

"Considering that this project, namely the construction of infrastructure, is supposed to be completed by the end of 2026, and as the construction industry and other processing activities intensify over time, which will simply supply products for equipping those spaces within the Expo complex, it will require a greater number of workers, and therefore we expect that a part of this demand will be covered precisely from these two countries," Stanic says.