Regional development strategy - RDA South

REGIONAL PROFILEPopulation, Demographics, Human Resources and Labour Market22.2rate, however, shows a declining trend overthe past several years. This may be due to thefact that a younger and better educated segmentof the population is entering the workforce.In general, younger people have betterqualifications in the computer and technology-relatedfields and may be more attractive toemployers in both, the service and the manufacturingsectors. Nevertheless, the unemploymentpressures are highest in the youngerage brackets.EmploymentDuring 2008 the public sector in all of Kosovohas created 6.937 new job opportunities. Thisis an increase of more than 6% over the previousyear. Precise data related to the EconomicRegion South are not available; however,there appear to be significant differences innumbers of new job opportunities offered bythe public sector among the region’s six municipalities.Municipality of Prizren has createdthe highest number of jobs in the publicsector. The major factors responsible for thedisparity include the degree of urbanizationand the level of public services offered.In terms of employment, the public sectorof the region is still the largest single employerand the annual job growth rate of this sectoris about 8%. The structure of job opportunitiesoffered by the private sector remainslargely unchanged over the past several years,with 64% of jobs offered by the service sub-sector,followed by 19% of jobs offered by manufacturingsub-sector and 17% offered in agriculture.In general, by comparing employment andunemployment figures, it is evident that EconomicRegion South is characterized by a remarkablyhigh degree of unemployment in allmunicipalities of the region.TABLE 5:Monthly income by region in Kosovo (euro)Incomes per regionThe highest average of wages in Kosovo in2008 have been reported for the Economic RegionCentre (262€ per month) and followed bythe Economic Region South (254€ per month).Much lower average wages have been paid inRegions East and West. Employees of these areas,however, enjoyed a much higher than averageannual wage increases.The average of monthly income in the RegionSouth reported for 2008 was 254€, whichis an increase of 53% in comparison to 2002.However, the income growth over the last severalyears is much slower than the averagegrowth rate for the entire Kosovo. This couldbe seen as a warning sign of stagnation in theregion’s level of business activity.Region 2002 2004 2006 2008 Growth (2006-2008)R. East 166 165 222 241 5.7%R. North 166 206 231 247 4.2%R. West 205 212 223 243 6.6%R. Centre 202 209 256 262 1.2%R. South 166 199 242 254 2.8%REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY FOR THE ECONOMIC REGION SOUTH13