Global Economic Crisis And Its Impact On The Western Balkan Countries Labor Markets

The global financial and economic crisis has serious impact of the Western Balkans countries. We focus on the labour markets and macroeconomic policies responses. Unemployment is rising sharply in the two most affected countries, Serbia and Croatia, and to a lesser extent thought at an already very high level, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the other Western Balkans countries the effects of the crisis in the labour market are less pronounced. We observed the four groups of macroeconomic responses to the crisis: monetary policies, fiscal policies, anti-crises packages and labor market and social policy measures. In addition, we analyze the effects on the labor market, distribution and social conditions of the most important measures of each group. We find that monetary and fiscal policies of the Western Balkans Countries have regressive impact on distribution and poverty. The Governments use the social policy measures to amortize their negative effects.