Living Standards Measurements Study - Serbia 2002 - 2007

Graph 9.1. Activity and Employment Status for respondents aged 15+, LSMS 2007
A major change in the structure of the
population aged 15 years or above in the period
between 2002 and 2007 is reflected in shifts from
the active population to inactive. As compared to
2002, the active population within the total
population aged 15 or above fell by 3.8 percent,
whereas the inactive population increased by almost
the same percentage. As can be seen in Table 1, the
LFS shows similar trends. Such transitions of the
population from active to the sphere of economic
inactivity caused the effective dependency rate of
113 percent2F2F3 , which means that that there are 113
not working per 100 working persons. For males,
this rate is 78.5 percent, and for females it
represents 158.5 percent, which practically means
that a little less than two-fifths of the women work
and three-fifths do not work.
This increase in the inactive population among
the population aged 15+ over the past five-year
period is primarily due to transition which initially
involves a reduction in the number of employed
people. Employees of the companies in bankruptcy
or liquidation became jobless. A large number of
employees were laid off from companies that
underwent ownership transformation. In cases
involving older workers, such workers, taking
advantage of the relatively fair severance pays
(around 130 000 dinars on average3F3F4 ) more often
opted for registration with the National
Employment Service awaiting to fulfil one of the
retirement conditions4F4F5 , rather than attempt to seek
new employment. Of the total number of inactive
persons who have become unemployed due to
dismissals or company bankruptcies, 54.2 percent
have become unemployed because of this during
2002-2007.
Table 9.1. Population aged 15+ by activity status, LSMS 2002 and 2007 and LFS 2004-2007
LSMS
LFS
2002 2007 2004 2005 2006 2007
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Active 57.9 54.1 55.5 53.5 51.0 51.0
Employed 51.6 47.0 45.2 42.3 40.4 41.8
Unemployed 6.3 7.1 10.3 11.2 10.6 9.2
Inactive 42.2 45.9 44.5 46.5 49.0 49.0
Activity rate(15-64) 67.2 64.2 66.4 65.2 63.6 63.4
Unemployment rate (15-64) 11.7 13.9 19.5 21.8 21.6 18.8
There is a strong correlation between labour
market status and living standards, and
Employment status
unemployment and poverty are very closely related.
However, the rise in the unemployment rate over
117