FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The performance of the labor market in Albania for 2025 shows that as the economy grows, new jobs are exclusively for retirees.
Official INSTAT data show that the average number of employees was 4,886 people lower than in 2024, with a decrease of -0.4%.
According to the data, the only positive growth in the entire employment structure comes from the over-64 category, which has expanded by 8.7%, adding over 10,000 elderly people to the ranks of the employed within a year. This trend has completely opposite developments to other age groups, where the number of employed people aged 15-64 has shrunk by 15,298 people compared to 2024.
If retirees were not included in the reporting, total employment figures would show a very sharp decline.
This demographic shift shows that the population structure is aging at a rapid pace, forcing the market to adapt to the workforce available. While young people aged 15-29 are disappearing from the ranks of the employed with an annual decline of 4.3% in 2025 due to the decrease in birth rates and high emigration, retirees are becoming the last reserve where businessmen can find staff.
The increase in employment among retirees, although serving as an artificial breath of fresh air for the labor market, hides the serious consequences that will come for the social security scheme and the country's fiscal sustainability. The ratio between contributors and beneficiaries is being dangerously distorted, as the active force aged 15-64 is shrinking by over 18 thousand people per year, the burden of maintaining the system is falling on an increasingly smaller base of young people.
In the short term, employing people over 64 seems like a boon to the state coffers, as these individuals continue to pay contributions while receiving their pension. However, this solution, where the older generation is working to finance themselves, due to the lack of replacement by the young workforce that is emigrating, does not offer security in the longer term.
Relying on retirees to fill the jobs left by young people is showing that the economy is adjusting to recession, not growth. Pressure on the state budget will increase, forcing either a further increase in the retirement age or higher taxes on the few young people who remain in the country./Monitor
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