In almost all public opinion polls in Bosnia and Herzegovina, citizens mention the high rate of unemployment as the main existential problem. Although the same answers are being repeated for years, BiH authorities tend to periodically notify the public that they are taking steps and making progress in resolving this situation.
The Government of Republika Srpska adopted the information on implementation of the 2011-2015 Employment Strategy of Republika Srpska for the period of 2013-2014, at its 26th session, held on June 18th. The most interesting part of this information is certainly in the following paragraph:
“By the realization of the Action Plan and by the intermediary activities of the employment services in 2013, 28.860 of the registered unemployed persons found employment, which exceeds the plan of finding the job for 26.500 unemployed persons by 2.360 people.
In 2014 the RS Employment Bureau registered a total of 32.671 unemployed, which is 13,2% more compared to the same period in 2013, or 21% more than planned for that year. ”
If we trust the figures in the report (61.513 employed in 2013 and 2014), we might think that better days are coming for the RS.
However, in December 2014, the Government of the RS adopted the Report on the Implementation of the Action Plan for Employment for 2014 (for the period of January 1st – September 30th, 2014) on its 88th session. According to this report, the project was continued until the end of September 2014, it reached a total of 6.170 new employed people, and for that purpose 18.912.718,54 KM was spent.
Until the end of September 2014, within the projects implemented in the framework of the Action Plan for Employment for 2014, a total of 1.003 people was employed, and 4.040.782,96 KM was invested in this.
Overall, 7.173 people was employed through the projects from both 2013 and 2014, and 22.953.498,50 KM was invested in that.
Thus, it is clear that the RS Government through its action in 2013 and 2014 employed only 7.173 people, which is significantly less than 61.531 from the information above.
Authorities manipulate data on employment / unemployment also in other ways. For example, if we look at the data from the RS Employment Bureau, we will see that in 2014 the number of registered unemployed people dropped from 150.193 to 142.675 (less by 7.518). Also, according to data from the same institution, in 2014 there were 61.731 newly registered unemployed. At the same time 65.107 people were removed from this list, and it is unclear how the decrease of 7.518 happened, because if we take the number of “removed” from the number of newly registered, we get a decrease by 3.376 persons. But even if we ignore this fact, or blame it on the inadequate records, we come to even more interesting data.
32.671 people were removed from the Employment Bureau’s registry because they found employment (31.675), or started a private business (996).
The Bureau, however, removed 32.432 persons on other basis (mostly failure to report to the Bureau on time) during the year 2014. This is how the RS government got the reported decrease of 7.518 person, whereas, if these persons weren't removed, we would have an increase in the number of unemployed persons from 150.193 to 175.452 (25.259 persons more).
If we look at the number of employed people in Republika of Srpska at the end of 2013 and 2014, which can be found in the Bulletin of the RS Institute of Statistics, we see that the number of employed people increased only by 2.904 – from 238.640 to 241.544.
So, in addition to not doing the job they were elected for by the people, which is clearly shown by only 3% of fulfilled promises in the 2010-2014 term, the authorities are also manipulating the data to cover up their negligence.
(istinomjer.ba)