Nezavisne novine: More thousands of BiH workers from abroad have come back in last months in our country after they have lost their jobs because of the economic crisis and recession which has hit the countries in which they have worked.
According to data of the Work and Employment Agency of BiH, to the evidence of competent services 2.737 workers have registered because of the cancelation of their work relation abroad. Economic analytics point out that a number of such workers is probably bigger because a part of them has not been registered yet.
Less transfers from abroad
In last year BiH evidences less transfers from our workers from abroad in relation to the previous period, because of their loss of job, reduction of salaries and increased fear for their own existence. According to last data of the Central bank of BiH, BiH workers have helped their family and friends in first nine months of last year with around 1.8 billion KM, and in whole 2007. with around 2.7 billion KM. "If during this year we evidence a fall of transfers from abroad – that will be the additional pressure to a current deficit in BiH, which used to be covered from that source as well", has been said by Goran Radivojac.
"Foreign workers, as well as our workers, are the first victims of recession on West, and their return is a first direct consequence of the world economic crisis in BiH", has been said by Goran Radivojac, professor at the Faculty for Economy in Banja Luka.
According to the official data, even 60% of the total number of returned BiH workers have come from Slovenia, 1.642 of them, while 787 from Croatia. In Austria 125 BiH workers have got dismissed, while 111 have been marked as a technological excess in Serbia. Recession has hit 39 workers from BiH in Germany, while some of them have been dismissed in other countries, as are Montenegro, Italy, Russia, Switzerland and Denmark.
"It is generally about workers of a high qualification, who have worked in the auto-industry, metal and textile industry, as well as in the companies which produce technical commodity and equipment. There has also been noticed a certain number of workers who have been employed in construction industry ", has been said by Sanela Zeljković, referent in the Work and Employment Agency of BiH.
Radivojac, also points out that the workers who work on positions which do not require sophisticated knowledge and specialized training are also being left without job.
"Those who have worked and got a dismissal in the auto-industry have surely not been engaged in projecting, but on tracks for production and processing of smaller parts", he has said.
Some traditional asylums for workers from these regions have been weakened because of recession, but from the other side, these workers say, they open up some new "exotic" destinations. Momčilo Mirjanić from Gradiška/Bosanska Gradiška, construction worker which earns his bread in the region of former Soviet Union, says that the situation in Russia, as the biggest marker from there, is being worse and worse.
"A lot of jobs in Russia have failed because of the economic crisis and irregular payment, so some of our workers are coming home, and some of them are going to Azerbaijan, in whose construction sector there is still no crisis. Currently, according to some estimations, around 1.000 workers from BiH and Serbia work there", has been said by Mirjanić, who soon expects job in Azerbaijan.