[LINK] "Worth the Risk?"

[rfmcdonald]

Ljubica Grozdanovska's Transitions Online article "Worth the Risk?" is interesting reading for its description of how the lack of economic opportunity in the Republic of Macedonia is encouraging many thousands of Macedonians to risk their lives in decidedly dicey contracts in world conflict zones.

Each year, more than 10,000 Macedonians travel to work in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other high-risk areas, according to sources at the companies who contract the workers. Thousands of other citizens also seek employment in Europe, North America, and Australia. Macedonia has an overall population of just more than 2 million.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is unable to confirm the number of Macedonian crisis-zone workers, or the total number of citizens working outside the country. According to the International Monetary Fund, "Official figures for the number of Macedonians living abroad are outdated, dropped from the 2002 census as politically sensitive after the 2001 security crisis," when government forces fought ethnic Albanian rebels. Based on numbers obtained from countries receiving migrants, however, it is possible that roughly 20 percent to 25 percent of Macedonians live abroad.

With the government exerting weak control over who leaves the country and under what terms, crisis-zone hiring is being conducted with little regard for Macedonian laws about mediating employment. Government officials have said there isn’t much they can do about the situation.

The majority of workers hired are between 35 and 55 years old and who are willing to trade the risks and separation from families to have jobs in a country with a 36-percent jobless rate. The contractors offer good money and steady employment.

Statistics on the number of Macedonians working abroad varies significantly, but Malgorzata Markiewicz's brief study "Migration and Remittances in Macedonia" at the Center for Economic Analyses suggests that at least 15% of Macedonians living abroad, while Joanne van Selm's June 2007 country profile "Macedonia: At a Quiet Crossroads " quotes a figure of 25%. Given Macedonia's relatively low wage levels and high unemployment rates, it's not very surprising that so many expatriates live beyond their country's borders to work and funnel remittances back to their dependents at home. The effects on the wider Macedonian economy, as with the effects on Macedonian society, of this remittance-producing worker diaspora are less known but seem to be overlooked in the crush for survival.