What are the most wanted Professions in the Labor Market in BiH?

As part of the Labor Market Survey 2021/2022, conducted annually by the Federal Bureau and the Cantonal Employment Service, in early 2022 a survey of a sample of 1.288 employers registered in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH)with five or more employees, sorted into small, medium and large employers by activities and cantons was organized.

This activity was implemented within the project ‘Improvement of labor market research’ funded by the European Union (EU) and is carried out with a uniform research methodology at the level of BiH.

The survey used in the Federation is identical to the survey used in the research of employers conducted by the Employment Bureau of the Republika Srpska (RS) and the Employment Bureau of the Brcko District of BiH. This enables the creation of a consolidated report for the whole of BiH.

According to the form of ownership, the most covered entities are from the private sector (more than 90 percent), among which most are micro (48 percent), small (35 percent), medium (11 percent), and large companies (6 percent), which corresponds to the economic situation in FBiH.

Of the total respondents, 726 or 54 percent expressed the need to hire 6.349 new workers in 2022. The highest estimated needs for new employment in 2022 were expressed for occupations in the manufacturing industry (48 percent), trade (18 percent), IT sector (7 percent), and construction (7 percent).

When it comes to education, employers expressed the greatest need for workers with secondary education of III degree, i.e. those who finished 3-grade high school (qualified worker), 56 percent. This is followed by the demand for IV degree workers, i.e. those who finished 4-grade high school (SSS) 17 percent, and higher education workers (VSS) five percent.

According to the results of the survey, the most wantedoccupations of III and IV degree in 2022 will be salesman-trader, locksmith, tailor, carpenter, welder, waiter, economic technician, shoemaker, electrician, carpenter, cook, computer scientist, and mechanical technician.

For occupations with a university education, the greatest demand, except for economists and masters of pharmacy, is expressed for workers from the IT sector – electrical engineers, system engineers, and programmers. This data confirms the fact of the growth of the number of employees in IT activities during 2020 and 2021 marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, all due to the increased digitalization of business processes and the strengthening of the presence of information technology in society in general.