Hope for foreigners, but in Albania there are less than 10 thousand working, 1% of the total

2024-05-09 07:13:00, Sociale CNA

Hope for foreigners, but in Albania there are less than 10 thousand working, 1%

With the emigration of the labor force, especially young people, the "hope" of businesses, but also of the government, was in foreign employees.

For more than three years, businesses have been trying to bring in foreign workers, but for the most part this has turned out to be an unsuccessful experiment.

Foreign workers in many cases left, even though they were offered a salary of 600 to 800 euros/month, accommodation and food, in order to retain the most qualified workers.

Many businesses claim that they are attracted to the recruitment of Asians for fear of leaving, but also the high costs of keeping them up to 600 USD per month that are not justified by the productivity of the work.

The data from the National Employment and Skills Agency (AKPA) 2022-2023 show that despite the increase, the number of foreign nationals with work permits in the country is negligible in relation to the market and the demands of others.

In 2023, citizens with work permits in total reached 9,825, with an increase of 18.3% compared to the previous year.

For comparison, the employed in the country at the end of 2023, according to INSTAT, were 1.32 million. Removing the state administration, of 181 thousand people, there are a total of 1.14 million employed in the private and agricultural sectors. As a result, foreigners in 2023 constituted only 0.86% of the total of those working in the private sector or in agriculture.

Yes, according to data from AKPA, for the year 2023, the accommodation and food service sector is in first place with 1094 employment approvals; the second is the construction sector with 999 approvals; in third place is the Other Service Activities sector with 985 approvals; in fourth place, the Wholesale and Retail Trade sector with 848 approvals and then the Other Processing Industry sector, with 788 approvals.

For 2023, according to AKPA, the highest number of foreigners are from Turkey, Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Italy. During the year 2023, the highest number of unique permits approved was during the month of May with 1,421 permits respectively.

Recently, the government's plans for an agreement with a foreign country to bring in 40,000 foreign workers were announced, without giving much detail about how this scheme will work and why the government should undertake such a role. All in all, given the trend and figures so far, this scheme is unlikely to work.

AKPA inspections: Foreign workers dominate in production, trade and construction

In about 10,000 inspections of various entities during the past year, the State Inspectorate of Labor and Social Services has encountered 1,350 foreign nationals employed by them.

"The increase in the employment of foreign workers brought a special attention to the inspection practice in the control of their working conditions to ensure that they have safe, fair and equal working conditions. This also emphasizes the need for the Labor Inspectorate to continue focusing its activity on law enforcement and guaranteeing respect for the rights of foreign workers," the document states.

But what are the sectors where foreigners are encountered most often according to the inspections carried out. The inspectorate reports that they mainly dominate in manufacturing enterprises with 592 employees encountered during inspections in 1913 entities.

In the meantime, there were also 9 employees without work permits in these entities. As far as the manufacturing companies are concerned, this is related to the fashion factories which earlier declared for such an initiative due to the lack of local labor force by testing employees from Bangladesh, which in the final was however described as an unsuccessful measure as the costs and departures were high.

The second sector is that of trade, which includes hotels, bars, restaurants with 195 employees who were found during inspections in 3797 subjects. All foreigners had work permits. In construction, 147 foreign employees were found after inspections in 1786 subjects, while 5 employees were found without work permits.

In the mining sector, there were 115 foreign employees from 182 inspected mines. Meanwhile, 20 foreign employees were found during inspections in transport and telecommunications.

The "other" group has a number of 277 employees. In total, during the year 2023, 9,820 inspections were carried out, where 1,350 foreign citizens with work permits and 27 without one were found./ Monitor magazine