Labour and Employment Agency of BiH participates in International Conference on Regional Market, Statistics Development and Investment Opportunities



The International Conference on Regional Market, Statistics Development and Investment Opportunities is being held today in Sarajevo with active participation of representatives of the Labour and Employment Agency of BiH.  Mr. Muamer Bandić, Director of the Labour and Employment Agency of BiH, presented the labour market situational analysis for BiH in 2017 comparing the current data with previous years.

As underlined by Mr. Bandić, the labour market in BiH has seen a positive trend reflected in an increase in employment and employers’ requests for labour force on the one hand, and in shrinking unemployment on the other.  Thus, according to the most recent data, BiH has 746,178 persons in employment, which is by 8,224 persons more than in December a year before or by 30,175 more than in December 2015.  At the same time, the number of jobless people in BiH has shrunk by 29,643 persons in comparison to December a year before or by as many as 57,189 persons in comparison to December 2015. Administrative unemployment rate dropped by 1.5% in comparison to the year before and by 3.5% if compared with the period two years ago.  The Labour Force Survey also shows a positive trend in the labour market.  Thus, the LFS unemployment rate in 2017 is by 5.1% lower from the previous year’s rate and by 7.2% compared to 2015. 

Director Bandić particularly stressed the fact that public employment services have been recording an increase in the number of people placed in employment through mediation of these institutions so that a total of 108,536 registered job seekers were placed in jobs in the first ten months of 2017.  Interestingly enough, this number is already now by 20%-40% higher than in each twelve-month period of the recession when BiH was suffering from the impact of the world economic downturn.

At the end of his presentation, Mr. Bandić reflected on qualification structure of job seekers in BiH and presented the most recent data which indicate that persons with third level of qualifications account for the largest share in registered unemployment, i.e. skilled workers constitute 32.87% and those with secondary educational attainment 28.03% in the total unemployment in BiH.