Salaries rise to 3.000 EUR: Employers ready to pay dearly

Salaries rise to 3.000 EUR: Employers ready to pay dearly

Milos Turinski from the Infostud portal told Kurir Daily that, looking at the job ad structure during this period, the most advertised positions are in the fields of trade, IT, engineering, administration, and hospitality.

"The most employment opportunities were available for salespeople, drivers, warehouse workers, administrative employees, and sales representatives. Year after year, we're witnessing an increasing shortage of labor force, resulting in a diminishing number of craftsmen, drivers, cooks, hairdressers, beauticians, hospitality workers, auto mechanics, and construction workers," said Turinski.

"The salaries offered for these positions ranged from the minimum wage to several thousand euros. The maximum salaries advertised for salespeople were 250,000 dinars, and for sales representatives, it was 350,000 dinars," Turinski explains and adds:

"For instance, the highest salary offered is for the position of head chef in Belgrade, amounting to a maximum of 350,000 dinars. Butchers and machinists can have a salary starting from 1,000 euros, or 120,000 dinars. Hairdressers and beauticians are offered earnings up to 150,000, while bakers and auto mechanics can have up to 200,000. As for waiters, they earn around 3,000 dinars plus tips in the capital, but their number is decreasing because they travel abroad to work during the season, where they are offered free accommodation and meals, along with earnings," he adds.

Turinski says that the shortage is most noticeable among skilled trades, and employers have the most difficulty finding workers in these fields.

"Warehouse workers are offered up to 150,000, administrative employees up to 180,000, while professional drivers in road freight transport are offered up to 250,000, with employers providing good conditions because it's known that our drivers go abroad for higher earnings; we're lacking 15,000 of them. However, it's not only Serbia that's experiencing a labor shortage; this situation is present in Europe as well," says Turinski.

"What's missing here is simply being replicated from what's missing in the West. Current generations aren't enrolling in vocational schools because they want to pursue other careers, and they aren't educated enough to realize that skilled trades are actually promising jobs that can provide stable employment and good income after high school," he adds.

Nevertheless, economist Aleksandar Stevanović says that given the current wages for fundamentally manual low-skilled jobs, the best we can do is import foreign labor, which we're already doing anyway.

"It might be good to pay a bit more attention to how to integrate them. The fundamental cause of labor shortages in the West is the demographic decline and the fact that there are nicer jobs available for similar or even higher pay. As for our own labor shortage, the reason is again demographic decline, but also higher wages in the West, where our people go," said Stevanović.

In-demand jobs and salaries:

Head Chef - 350,000 dinars

Driver - 250,000 dinars

Electrician - 240,000 dinars

Plumber - 240,000 dinars

Auto Mechanic - 200,000 dinars

Baker - 200,000 dinars

Warehouse Worker - 180,000 dinars

Hairdresser and Beautician - 150,000 dinars

Metal processing Worker - 120,000 dinars

Butcher - 120,000 dinars