Coping with unemployment in the west Balkans: a comparative analysis with respect to central and east European countries
Coping with unemployment in the west Balkans: a comparative analysis with respect to central and east European countries

Summary/Abstract: This article examines how west Balkan countries may achieve a sustainable high rate of economic growth so as to cope with the unemployment problem, comparing the issue to the approach of certain new EU members from central and eastern Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia). Specifically, it analyses the reasons, and the feasible proposals for solution, for the persistently high rates of unemployment in the west Balkans, comparing these to the rates of the recent EU members from central and eastern Europe. First, it investigates the main macroeconomic indicators during the transition to the market economy and then explores the causes of why sustainable high economic growth, which is most likely to lead to more jobs, has not prevailed in the western Balkans. The analysis concludes that the western Balkans, with relatively low per capita incomes and low savings tendencies, could not have provided sources of capital accumulation through domestic funds.

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