Rural NEETs report in Serbia: 2009/2019 Overview

Abstract

The situation of rural Youths Neither in Employment nor in Education or Training (NEET) aged between 15 and 34 years old, over the last decade (2010-2019) in Serbia is presented in this report. The main criterion for analysis was the degree of urbanisation, where the comparison was done between rural areas, towns and suburbs, cities, and the whole country. The data available on EUROSTAT and the national Statistical office of Serbia were used as main resources for statistical interpretation. The statistical procedures used in the report rely on descriptive longitudinal analysis, using graphical displays (e.g. overlay line charts) as well as the calculation of proportional absolute and relative changes between observed years. The analysis of the youth population in Serbia aged 15-24 years in total as well as the youth population for different degrees of urbaisation, for the period 2010-2019, showed a decreasing trend. In the period 2014-2019 (which is with available data for the case of Serbia) it can be observed that the youth employment rate is increasing in all areas of urbanisation. In contrast to the employment, the level of unemployment in Serbia is constantly decreasing in the period 2014-2019. This trend is similar for all three areas of urbanisation. The decrease in the number of early school leavers is registered in the case of entire Serbia, cities, and rural areas. The only trend of increasing of early school leavers’ rate is recorded for the towns and suburbs, for the observed period 2014-2019. In the period 2010-2019, the NEET rate is declining in Serbia for all three degrees of urbanisation. In comparison to EU countries, Serbia is still significantly above the European average, but with a tendency of reducing the gap.