Half of Macedonian Youngsters Want to Emigrate

Poor employment perspective drives youngsters away | Photo by Dimitar Vandovski

Worried by poor employment prospects and general social disarray, 49.5 per cent of high school students said they did not see themselves remaining in the country for the next ten years.

"These figures are alarming," Brankica Georgievska, a project coordinator for the Youth Education Forum, NGO that carried out the survey told Balkan Insight.

Many respondents pinpointed the weak economy and the shortage of job opportunities as the biggest problems.

"Many young people say their country offers them little chance of success and that they feel unable to change anything in their surroundings,” Georgievska said.

Students from the small western town of Debar and the central town of Veles were most dissatisfied with local opportunities.

More than 60 per cent of them said that their towns offered very little in the way of a future.

Most satisfied were students from the capital, Skopje, and the central town of Stip.

The survey was conducted in 50 high schools across 13 towns from a representative sample of some 3,600 students.

A straw poll conducted by Balkan Insight confirmed the survey's findings.

“I want to leave as soon as possible and enroll in a faculty elsewhere,” Filip Stojanovski, a freshman student from Skopje told Balkan Insight. A foreign diploma would help him find a better job in a Western country and stay there, he added.

“Outside the country it would be better. I see no bright future for me here. You cannot expect to get a decent job here without pulling strings or bribing someone,” agreed Cvetanka Lazova, another student from Skopje.

Official statistics show that over 30 per cent of Macedonia’s workforce is unemployed while about the same percentage of Macedonian residents live in poverty. The average salary of about 250 euros is far below the European average.