Labour market outcomes in selected South Eastern European Countries in a process of accession to the European Union

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to show the position of the SEE countries: Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania, turned into the group of Western Balkans, compared to the European Union. Besides these countries, the paper analyzes Croatia, a member of the EU, which was part of the Western Balkans and Slovenia, which is the oldest member of the Union from the former Yugoslav republics. The process of real convergence of the Western Balkans toward the EU is analyzed through the main trends on the labor markets: unemployment, employment, labour force participation rate, productivity, labor force education, etc. It is analyzed the period in the last ten years, where almost there are no geo-political problems, but on the other hand it can be seen the impact of the Great Depression from 2008 in the process of accessing the European Union. In the paper is analyzed the effect of Hysteresis for explaining the high and sustainable rate of unemployment in the countries. The results show that in the analyzed period the labour markets of Western Balkan countries do not achieve convergence towards the European Union. Croatia, which is a member of the Union, according to its performance, is closer to the Western Balkans than the European Union. In the paper, for analyzing the trends on the labor market are used official data from the base of the World Bank, World development indicators.