January, 2003

Kosovo a year before and now   Kosovo was the most optimstic country in the world for the past two years, where the great majority of citizens were expressing optimistic about the coming year. However, this optimism marked a decreasing trend, which placed Kosovo this year into the second most optimistic country in the world. Compared to previous End of Year surveys in Kosovo, the survey this time covered Serb citizens of Kosovo as well. Although the level of optimism among Kosovar Albanians has suffered a decrease since last year, again the majority (77%) feel optimistic about 2003, whereas the overall level optimism in Kosovo is 74%, since Kosovar Serbs are far less optimistic than Kosovar Albanians (34%).

The drop of level of optimism is visible in the economic aspect as well, where the number of citizens who think that 2003 will be a year of economic prosperity is decreasing and the number of those who think that the situation will remain the same and that the new year will be a year of economic difficulty is increasing. Differences between Serbs and Albanians are very high. While 60% of Albanians believe that 2003 will be a year of economic prosperity, only 16% of Kosovar Serbs state this. The decreasing trend of optimism related to economic development and prosperity is reflected in people’s predictions about the problem of unemployment in Kosovo. We have an increasing number of citizens who think that the number of unemployed in Kosovo is going to increase and a decreasing number of those who believe that the number of unemployed is going to fall. Again there are significant differences between two largest ethnic groups in Kosovo. In one hand, 44% of Albanians think that the number of unemployed in Kosovo is going to increase, while on the other hand, thi opinion is shared by 69% of Serbs.

Respondents’ answers to the End of Year Survey 2002 reveal that 78.6% of Kosovar citizens are not employed, whereas out of those who work 16.8% are full-time and 4.3% part-time employees. The results of the research also show that unemployment among Albanians is much higher (80%) than among Serbs (56%). Out of those that are employed, less than half (39%) think that their job is safe; Kosovar Albanians feel more safe in their working place (42%) than Kosovar Serbs (25%). Albanians also feel more certain (22%) then Serbs (8%) in finding a new job quickly if they become unemployed. Possibilties of strikes and industrial disputes are all the time increasing from one year to another. While only 18% of respondents felt that strikes could increase in 2001, this percentage for 2002 was 24%, and for this year it has reached 33%. Again differences between Albanians and Serbs are considerable. While 31% of Albanians think that possibilties of strikes and industrial disputes will increase in the new year, this opinion is shared by 53% of Serbs. In contrast to some Western countries, such as USA, United Kingdom and Germany, where more than half of citizens feel that 2003 will be a troubled year with much international discord, this concern is not so high in Kosovo (17%), although it is getting higher compared to previous years. Nevertheless, seen from the ethnic angle, then it comes out that Albanians are the ones that are not so much concerned about the international disputes in 2003 (15%), while on the other hand 40% of Kosovar Serbs think that 2003 will be a troubled year with much international discord.