PRISTINA (Kosovo), December 1 (SeeNews) – Lack of skills, skill gaps and skill mismatches in the labour market appear to be a particular problem for large and fast-growing firms in Kosovo, the World Bank said in a new report.
“Job creation in Kosovo has been quite limited, in particular in the private sector. Labor costs that rise faster than productivity erode competitiveness and seem to be the most important constraint,” the World Bank said in its report Western Balkans: Revving Up the Engines of Growth and Prosperity released on Thursday.
The report looks at how Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia - the six countries of the Western Balkans - can speed up economic growth and achieve faster income convergence with the EU.
A large numbers of households in Kosovo get help in the form of remittances from family members who have moved abroad, the report noted, adding that high remittances discourage employment.
“Remittances reach 20-25 percent of households in Kosovo and are estimated to amount to more than 15 percent of GDP. Remittances as a share of household income vary by country, with the highest levels in Kosovo, followed by Albania.”
On ease of doing business, Kosovo is below the region’s average, largely because of poor quality and availability of electricity.
When it comes to Information and communications technology (ICT), Kosovo stands out as a particularly low performer with only 5.74% of the population use mobile broadband services, almost one-seventh of the Western Balkans average.
On a regional level, the unemployment rate in Western Balkans is almost two times higher than in other small transition economies that are now in the EU. With half of the working age population in the region seeking work and a quarter of job-seekers failing to find it, the need to increase participation in the labour market in the region remains key, the World Bank noted.
Informality is the biggest obstacle in Kosovo in terms of unfair completion among enterprises, the report noted.