63% of the businesses, with 1 employee

“50% of the active enterprises that have been registered in this process, have been created during 2005-2009. Half of them are concentrated in Tirana and Durres”, Nurja says.

62.7% of the businesses have only one employee. 28.2% have 2 to 4. while the enterprises with more than 50 employees are only 0.9% of the total.

Mrs. Nurja says that the Albanian business is oriented towards the services.

“It seems clear that the Albanian economy is now developed and oriented towards the services, since 84% of these enterprises offer services”, Nurja declared.

According to the Census, 84.5% of the enterprises have less than 5 million ALL of annual turnovers. 5.2% from 5-10 million and only 0.9% more than 250 million ALL of annual turnover, or more than 2.5 million USD.

INSTAT, contradictory employment figures

INSTAT says that 2010 was one of the best years for the new businesses. According to the Census, the number of private and state companies that are not shareholding companies grew with 13.626, or 14% more, compared to one year ago. According to INSTAT, 9000 of these businesses have created one job each. 3895 of these businesses have opened from 2 to 4 jobs, and the rest more than five.

According to these measurements, the total number of new jobs should be increased with 21.330, which is the Census result. But the employment numbers, published by INSTAT< indicate that the number of new jobs in the private and non-agricultural sector grew with only 7400 people, or three times less than the Census result. The number of jobs is even smaller than the number of new businesses opened in 2010.

The other paradox, as it has often happened with the employment numbers in Albania, can be explained with some reasons. During 2010, some businesses with a big number of employees have closed and some small businesses have been opened, with only one people being employed. Although the number of enterprises is increased, the number of employees remains almost unchanged. Some given individuals own more than one business and declare themselves employed at all businesses that they might have.

The third explanation puts in question one of the two figures. Either the official figure of employed people is not accurate, which raises suspicions for evasion, or the number of new businesses opened during 2010 could have been smaller from the result given by INSTAT. Despite the real cause, the figures show that the economy has a problem… which is that the opening of new businesses doesn’t increase employment, at least not formally.

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