U izradi



The Labour and Employment Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Federal Employment Service and the Employment Service of Republika Srpska held a joint conference in Sarajevo today to present labour market trends in the first six months of 2012 and problems encountered by public employment services in their work with the unemployed. 

The upward trend in unemployment continued in January and February 2012 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Unemployment dropped in March, April and May only to increase in June 2012 again by 1,472 persons or 0.27%.  The number of the unemployed in the first six months of 2012 increased as compared to the same period of the previous year.  In year-on-year comparison, the unemployment figure in June was up by 12,115 persons or 2.3%.   The look at the BiH labour market reveals that the period January-June 2012 has seen the following: a drop in the number of registered unemployed persons (down by 3,368 persons or 0.6% in comparison to January 2012); a drop in the number of new inflows to unemployment registers (total number of new inflows in the observed period was 75,703, down by 5.1% on the same period in 2011); increase in the number of outflows from unemployment registers due to employment (up by 2,917 persons or 7.8% on the same period of the previous year); increased number of job openings notified by employers; increased number of employment terminations and increased number of unemployment benefit recipients (up by 554 or 5.0% on the January-June 2011 average). 

The number of persons in employment in BiH was up by 0.4% in the period January-May 2012.  The largest growth in employment over the past period was registered in the real estate, renting and business activities sector, education and mining and quarrying.   In the period January-May 2012 the number of persons employed in in the real estate, renting and business activities sector increased by 7.9%, education sector by 3.2% and mining and quarrying sector by 3.1% in comparison to the same period of 2011.   In the same period, the number of persons employed in the fishing sector declined by 9.1%, construction industry by 8.1% and hotel and restaurant sector by 5.7%. 

In June 2012 public employment services in BiH placed into jobs 6,785 registered unemployed persons, which is a drop of 15.7% (1,261 persons) in comparison to May 2012 or 15.8% (1,275 persons) in year-on-year comparison. 

The total of 6,878 persons lost their jobs in June 2012, which is an increase by 229 persons or 3.4% on the previous month or 596 persons or 9.5% in year-on-year comparison.   

The structure of job seekers as of 30 June 2012 shows that unskilled workers constitute 29.92% (160,951 persons), low skilled workers 2.1% (11,315), skilled workers 34.83% (187,400), highly skilled workers 0.71% (3,816), workers with basic school education 0.35% (1,886), with secondary education 25.19% (135,512), higher non-university education 1.38% (7,414) and those with university degree 5,52% (29,698). The largest share of 34.83% in registered unemployment is made up of persons with the third level of educational background – skilled workers, followed by unskilled workers with 29.92%.  

“Those are persons who need the biggest help and support of employment services.  We have sent a request to the BiH Council of Ministers to provide us with facilities on eight locations where entity-employment services would open retraining and skills-upgrading centres for those persons” said Adnan Delić.  Mr. Delić mentioned that 25,000 persons will be hired next year as census takers and that the Labour and Employment Agency of BiH will ensure that 90% of them are registered job seekers.   Directors of entity-level employment services, Kenan Rešo and Milko Čolaković, stressed that the responsible education ministries should engage more efficiently in addressing unemployment problems and make the most of available labour market analyses produced each year by employment services.  Special attention should also be given to adult education, retraining and skills-upgrading since large numbers of registered job seekers have no vocational qualifications. 

The press was also introduced to the on-going employment support schemes and it was stressed that one of the biggest labour market problems continues to be employment in the black market which, according to estimates, employs about 200,000 persons.