Despite unemployment rates kept changing in years in Kosovo, the country’s women significantly remained discriminated against in the job market.
Mirjeta Shabani/Buletini Ekonomik
According to the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, in 2020, the employment rate had fallen in comparison to 2016. In 2020, only 38.3 percent of the working age population were active, while in 2016, the employment rate stood at 38,7 percent of the active working age persons.
Nonetheless, there is a significant difference in the employment rate between men and women in Kosovo.
According to the 2020 report released by the Ministry of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade, MINT, the participation of women in the labor force in 2020 stood at 20.8 percent, while in 2019 was 21.1 percent, marking a decline of the working force up to 0.30 percent.
The male’s employment rate participation in 2020 stood at 56 percent while in 2019 it stood at 59 percent.
The unemployment rates in Kosovo soared in years as the nascent state remains one of the countries with the highest unemployment rates in Europe.
While the overall unemployment rate in 2020 was at 25.9 percent, in 2019, the numbers stood at 25.7 percent. In 2018 up to 29.6 percent of people in Kosovo were jobless. However, 2017 was the darkest year as 30.5 percent of Kosovo’s population was unemployed.
The unemployment rates also have seen a different picture between men and women in the country.
The unemployment rate of Kosovo women in 2020 stood at 32.3 percent in comparison to 2019 which was 34.4, while the 23.5 percent of Kosovo men were jobless in 2020 in comparison to 22.6 percent which stood in 2019.
In the first three months of 2021, the overall unemployment rate in Kosovo stood at 25.8 percent or 124, 657 people from the age of 15 to 64 were unemployed.
The labour participation rates in the first three months of 2021 were higher than during the three months of 2020.
