Vidakovic: Young people follow labor market trends, they are interested in IT and medicine, but not in trades

Younger generations in Serbia follow labor market trends and what employers are looking for, which is why there is strong interest in information technology and technical faculties, says Tatjana Vidakovic from Infostud.

Vidakovic told Kosovo Online that young people have brought many new elements to the labor market and primarily want to balance work with private life, but that, in addition to a solid salary, social responsibility and a company’s image are also important to them.

“A balance between work and private life is extremely important. That is why they often choose companies that offer either the possibility of working from home or hybrid work, meaning partly from the workplace and partly from home. How they will spend and use their free time is also very important to them,” Vidakovic said.

According to her, although in times of economic crisis financial factors are dominant, new generations are also interested in interpersonal relationships when choosing a job, what the company is like, what its culture is, what projects they will work on, what they will do, and what their opportunities for advancement are.

“They often tell us that this is not just declarative, but that they want the company to truly have certain activities that support that image of itself in public, that it is not just a mere formality,” Vidakovic said.

She added that on the most visited employment website in Serbia – Infostud – they record strong interest among young people every year in labor market trends and in what employers are seeking.

“From this, we see interest in information technology and in enrolling in technical faculties. Professions related to human resources are also increasingly on the rise, so in recent years we have seen strong interest in studying psychology. Medicine and dentistry are always at the top of interest, as are economics and law. The Faculty of Architecture as well. These are faculties that fill their quotas very quickly in the first enrollment rounds,” Vidakovic said.

She emphasized that the Faculty of Organizational Sciences is also among the sought-after choices.

“In the previous year there was a slight decline in interest, but I would say that demand for that faculty has been stable for years,” Vidakovic added.

She pointed out that there is a significant shortage of skilled tradespeople in the labor market, because young people are not as interested in trades, even though wages are several times higher than the national average.

“In recent years alone, bricklayers have earned average salaries of around 220,000 dinars, which is far above the average. So on the one hand, young people follow what is happening in the labor market, they are very interested in it and well informed, but on the other hand, we still see that in some areas they do not yet show as much interest, although I think there has been some progress. I believe they do not know enough about these professions and they do not seem attractive enough to them at the moment, and this is a large area that can be worked on in the years to come,” Vidakovic concluded.