The Institute of social studies and humanities is currently conducting the analysis on “Social and economic impact of self-employment dynamics in Albania” which is a project that aims to unravel the different factors that have made Albania the country with the highest self-employment rate in Europe. The analysis is motivated from the Institute’s aim to contribute to an informed and scientific-based policy discussion on socio-economic policies in Albania, especially in relation to the principle of the social justice. Given the current lack of a substantial research and analysis of this employment pattern, we have initially witnessed several misguided policy solutions on the side of the government as well as international actors in the country in relation to labor market policies.

Our work in researching and analyzing the multi-segment assemblage of the self-employment dynamics in Albania aims to link together various social, economic and cultural elements and provide policy analysis on:

– Social impact of the income generated through self-employment, impact on poverty increase/reduction and access to social, health and pension security of the self-employed;

– Economic impact of the high level (almost 60%) of self-employed on the country’s GDP;

– Re-structure of the economy in order to increase the industrial sector that currently is the smallest in terms of employment capacities;

– Discursive intervention in the dominant and mainstreamed narrative on self-employment as a feasible, profitable and non-exploitative practice of employment.

The implementation of the project covers the period between the months of April 2017 and January 2018 and it will be conducted in three phases: (Phase1) Desk research on employment policies in Albania, empirical research, data analysis on the scale of self-employment and sectoral distribution, etc.; (Phase 2) Consultative rounds of discussions and focus groups with experts on the current policies in the labor market as well as discursive analysis of the media and other sources of opinion shaping content on employment practices; (Phase 3) Promotion of the policy paper with the general public and discussions in five cities with university students – a group on the entrance stage to the labor market.

The project “Social and economic impact of self-employment dynamics in Albania” is supported by the Albanian Agency for the support of the civil society.