The administration takes a lot of vacations, the number of employees increased in 2023

2024-03-15 07:07:00, Aktualitet CNA

The administration takes a lot of vacations, the number of employees increased

Illustrative photo

Friday should have been a normal working day, but the administration has taken it off, according to a recent decision of the Council of Ministers. Friday followed Thursday, which was the official Midsummer Day holiday.

After four days of rest, official institutions will be at the service of the public and businesses on Monday.

While many services have actually been done online, minimizing physical contact and queues, the number of employees in the state sector has increased.

According to INSTAT data, in the last quarter there were 182,000 employees in state institutions, or about 2,400 people more than in the previous quarter.

While compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, their number has remained almost unchanged. Compared to five years ago, there are about 9,000 more people working in the administration.

In total, over 730,600 employees paid social insurance in the last quarter of 2024.

In the private sector where 549,288 employees with insurance were counted or 2% more than the same period of 2022.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to the third quarter of the year, the number of employees with insurance was reduced by 6,700 people or by 1 percent. This is because in the third quarter of the year the economic activity in the country was at its peak since the tourist season.

Insurance employment is growing, but rates are low compared to other economic indicators. From 2019 to 2023, those declared with insurance are 49 thousand more, or with an increase of 7%, but meanwhile during this period the economy has expanded by over 14%.

The growth of the economy theoretically means more jobs, but in the case of Albania, these two indicators have not been in a fair relationship with each other. During the transition period, economic growth has not been a major generator of employment.

As the country's economy is growing at faster rates than the last decade, slow steps are being taken towards informality in the labor market and informality in general.

The labor force is on the verge of depletion due to falling births and high emigration, so reducing informality remains the main source of generating income for the future pension scheme, which is necessary for a growing army of pensioners.

In 2022, informal employment in the non-agricultural sector is 28.2%, marking an increase of 1.2 percentage points compared to 2021, iNSTAT reported.

Sources from the market claim that informality in the labor market was favored by the increase of the minimum wage three times in a row within a year.

Albania is moving towards a demographic transition. By 2070, the share of the elderly is expected to reach 40 percent of the population compared to only 17 percent today.

In the same period, the working-age population (25-64) is predicted to drop from 54 currently to 41 percent in 2070. In the latest review of the Agreement with Albania, the Monetary Fund points out that future generations of Albanian retirees risk poverty. because they do not meet the criteria for the benefit of the full pension.

Informality in the labor market today will have negative consequences in the long-term future. The IMF reported that in June 2022 about 1.7 million people in Albania were aged 15-64, of which about 38 percent were contributing to the pension scheme and the rest 60 percent were neither contributors nor pensioners and about 4 per percent were pensioners./ Monitor