Non-farm employment in Albania increased by 4.3 per cent to 248,375 employees during the first semester 2011 year on year basis, figures published by the Institute of Statistics shows. Employment in Albania had continued to grow despite the mounting business difficulties of the last two years albeit from a small basis.

Since the first quarter 2009, about 1200 Albanians had found a job every semester but the pace of growth is far from enough to reduce the unemployment in the towns and underemployment in the countryside.

The official unemployment fell to 13.4 per cent in the first quarter 2011. According to INSTAT, Albania has an workforce of 1.06 million in March, from which 506,000 are considered “self-employed in agriculture”, 248k are in non-farm private payroll while 165k works in public sector.

Since unemployment doesn’t officially exist in rural areas, the real unemployment in urban areas is estimated at about 30 per cent. About half of the self-employed in agriculture is estimated to work in very small plots and are considered underemployed.