Attracting workers from Balkan countries requires companies to be more proactive and offer better pay, the National Employment Service said on Tuesday, dispelling the idea spread by businesses that workers from Balkan countries will not meet Slovenia’s growing labour needs.
Over 22,000 work permits for foreigners were issued in the first half of this year, with the majority of the workers coming from Kosovo (7,000), Bosnia-Herzegovina (6,000) and Serbia (1,700), Employment Service director Metka Barbo Škerbinc said Tuesday.
To attract potential workers from Balkan states, Škerbinc says Slovenian employers might have to offer them higher pay since work permit data shows over 90% of foreign workers are offered nothing more than minimum wage.
“I see an opportunity here for employers to attract staff with appropriate incentives – the higher the pay, the easier it will be for them to attract workers,” she added.
While there is still a lot of interest in countries from which Slovenia has traditionally imported workers, the latter for which expectations have been raised, are now also looking towards other European countries where interest in Balkan workers is also growing, she added.
The Employment Service is convinced that Slovenia needs to do a better job recruiting workers in their source countries, which the institution is already doing in collaboration with job agencies in the Balkans.
For example, at a recent Slovenian job fair in North Macedonia, there were 3,500 people. And with 140,000 workers there unemployed, there is significant potential for Slovenian firms. There are also 350,000 people out of work in Bosnia-Herzegovina and around 400,000 in Serbia, she added.
(Sebastijan R. Maček | sta.si)
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