Balkan residents are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet and remain pessimistic about their countries’ and their own economic recovery, an annual Gallup poll released on Wednesday finds. More than a half of the 1,000 people interviewed in each of the seven Western Balkan countries covered by the survey - namely Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia – reported difficulties in managing their household income. The percentage of such respondents was highest in Serbia and lowest in Croatia, or 78 and 52 per cent respectively. The number of respondents who reported financial difficulties rose most dramatically in Kosovo- from 33 per cent in 2009 to 54 per cent this year.
Since 2006, when survey respondents were first asked if they could rely on remittances from close relatives and friends abroad, the share of people who answered positively has been steadily declining in most countries. The drop was especially steep in Kosovo and Montenegro, where the proportion of respondents being able to count on help from family living outside the country went from 56 and 51 per cent in 2006 to 36 and 31 per cent this year, respectively.
An increasing number of respondents were also pessimistic about the economic recovery, particularly in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, where two-thirds of those queried felt that the state of their economies was worsening. Also, while the share of optimistic job seekers went up in Macedonia fom 16 per cent in 2008 to 24 per cent in 2010, and in Serbia from 25 per cent to 45 percent in the same period, the unemployed interviewees were overall not very hopeful about finding employment. The number of respondents without work who did not expect to find a job within the next year was highest in Bosnia, where it skyrocketed from 42 per cent in 2009 to 74 per cent this year. This figure was lowest in Montenegro, where 38 percent of those queried responded likewise.
News source: BalkanInsight link: article
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