More than 400,000 Serbian workers left their jobs in EU countries and came back to Serbia following the outbreak of the corona virus epidemic.
Last year, according to the World Bank estimates, our employees working abroad remitted 4,16 billion dollars to Serbia, which was enough to cover two thirds of its foreign trade deficit and more than enough to considerably raise the living standard of the recipients. The Bank now estimates that this year the sum will be reduced by 28% i.e. by 1,2 billion dollars. In first two months of this year it already decreased from 495 to 451 million dollars (almost by 10%).
In a highly controversial statement, President of Serbia, Vucic, invited the repatriated workers to “stay and start working in Serbia, as they could make their life much better here than anywhere else”. He concluded by saying that in Serbia they would be able to earn a sum equal to their former remittances.
The experts are, however, much less convinced about the feasibility of this project and qualify it as wishful thinking. Professor of Economics at Belgrade University, Petar Djukic, thinks that our economy will be seriously affected by the current crisis and that majority of Serbian workers who worked abroad will not be able to keep their jobs there. Many of them left the homeland because they lived in extremely difficult conditions, so the loss of a secure income which let them live decent lives will certainly affect their well-being. As a consequence of the massive workers comeback, Djukic expects a drop of wages and employment. The private business will suffer most, but public sector should not feel protected either – it is difficult to keep the same number of employees and same salaries in a situation where the economic activity could easily decrease by 5%.
Other experts point to the necessity of a new strategy of economic development, similar to Roosvelt’s “New Deal”, as they simply don’t see other way of facing the challenge of the enormous influx of unemployed coming from EU countries. Still, there is the problem of necessary means because the country first must pay the debt it made fighting the pandemic. After all, the experts of the European Commission fear that the unemployment which recently fell down to 10.3% might grow to 12.7%. The IMF is even more pessimistic: skeptical about our workers’ fast return to Western Europe, they prefer to speak about 13.4% unemployment increase.
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