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As a result of the ongoing privatization and company restructuring process, unemployment increased slightly with a total number of 808,200 unemployed in September 2007. The official 2007 unemployment rate was 18.8%. Average monthly salary amounts to € 338, while the monthly gross statutory minimum wage stands at € 138.41. In addition, the employee has the right to receive additional percentage of the salary based on the overtime, public holidays, night work, and work in shifts. Salary compensations include the following:

• Compensations during sick leave due to occupational disease or injury at work – 65% of the salary
• Compensations during annual leave, public holidays and paid leave – 100% of the salary

Statutory working hours in Serbia are 40 hours per week, while time over the statutory hours is considered overtime and may amount up to 4 hours per day or 8 hours per week. A break is at least 30 or 15 minutes, depending on whether an employee works full time or 4-6 hours a day. An employee has the right to a break between two consecutive working days of at least 12 hours, while weekly break is no less than 24 hours. Annual leave can be used after a minimum of 6 months from the employment contract starting date, and totals a minimum of 20 days per year. Maternity leave lasts up to 3 months starting from the date of birth. Upon the expiry of the maternity leave, the mother or father of the child may use a paid leave for infant care for a total of 365 days, which includes maternity leave.

Skilled and productive labor force has proven to be one of Serbia’s major competitive advantages in the global investment market. With a unique combination of high quality and low-cost skill-set, it is widely regarded as a strong business performance driver. Unlike most transition countries in CE Europe, Serbia fostered extensive relationships with Western economies for decades. A list of blue-chip companies maintaining strong ties with local partners is lead by Siemens, Alcatel, General Motors, FIAT, IKEA and many others. Throughout years of cooperation Serbian workers have received specific know-how and adopted advanced technology applications and rigorous quality control standards. The skill level of local labor force is reflected in high industrial productivity, which increased by 11.4% over the past five years, and only in 2007 by 1.8%.

The quality of Serbia’s intellectual capital is based on its educational system generating well educated, fast-learning, multilingual, and IT literate people. Technical education is particularly strong, thus high school students perform among the best in mathematics, physics and IT international competitions.

In recent years the number of university graduates grew by almost 14% annually averaging 14,370, while 1/3 of all students graduate from technical universities.

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