Demographics have always had a negative context in this part of the world and have always been accompanied by disappointing statistics.
While young people are leaving to live and work in wealthier countries, the Serbian population is ageing and its number is declining, which directly and indirectly affects the country’s GDP and causes problems in the labour market.
Two years ago, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said that the demographic issue “will soon become the most important political issue”. Last year was not an average year in terms of population numbers, since the large influx of foreigners, especially Russians, at least briefly raised hope that the hole in the number of the population of Serbia could be filled, or at least patched up.
However, as stated in the Migration Profile published annually by the Refugees and Migration Commissariat, in 2022, more people left Serbia than came back.
In the absence of detailed data, the migration profile uses Eurostat data on the number of immigrants published by EU Member States.
According to the data for 2021, 13,849 people left Serbia, although experts indicate that this number is much higher. For instance, they show that the largest number of citizens who left our country went to Austria – 3,499 of them or about a quarter of the total number. It is easy to see a shortcoming here – these statistics do not have data on Germany, the main destination for Serbian emigrants.
According to the Institute for Development and Innovation, there are almost no domestic statistics on emigration from Serbia, while international statistics are not that comprehensive. By cross-checking data from international sources, the estimates show that between 15,700 to 49,000 citizens emigrate from Serbia annually. According to OECD data, 23,000 citizens left Serbia for Germany in 2021 alone, which is a noticeably higher number than the total number of emigrants listed in the Migration Profile.
The research conducted by the Institute in 2019 shows that, due to the inability to prevent the annual outflow of the population, Serbia recorded an annual loss of gross added value of about 897.3 million euros, which is about 2.1 percent of the Serbian GDP in 2018.
In simpler terms, every working citizen emigrating from Serbia takes with them on average at least 19,500 euros of future annual GDP. Furthermore, the Institute states that that amount is higher in the case of ICT experts and it stands at about 40,800 euros. In addition to the fact that they no longer participate in the creation of GDP, there is a loss of money invested in their education.
The analysis shows that, as a result of these two factors combined, Serbia annually loses between 2.5 and 3 billion euros.
(Bloomberg Adria, 03.11.2023)