Nor is there expected to be enough support for businesses and workers infected in the pandemic this year

Disturbing is being considered by the GAP Institute and doubling the number of job seekers in the pandemic.

Although business losses are huge, researchers from the GAP Institute say the package for economic recovery has a small fund, in addition to demands and the need for the private sector and workers who have lost jobs.

Researchers at the GAP Institute, Bland Hossey has said many businesses have eliminated their activity and, therefore, many people are out of work.

According to him, the problem for 2021 will remain the operation and development of businesses.

And also for 2021, although we have an approved law, it's that the size of the recovery package is small. So if we bypass the categories for goods or health expenses, we only have 86m euros that can be used for business subsidies, as well as around 20m or 50m euros for the credit guarantee fund, where credit insurance cover can be increased and in principle cannot be expected to be a great contribution to the current budget law. So, whether from government to resignation or incoming government, only if a budget review is made and there is greater budget re-determination from business”, Haysa points out.

He has also said that according to Labour Agency data, only in the January-October 2020 period alone, there is a doubling of registered job seekers, which adds that it is disturbing.

“Double the number for such a short period of registered job seekers is quite disturbing, on the other hand, by the circulation declaration that businesses do in the Kosovo Tax Administration, it turns out that in the first three months of 2020 alone, businesses have declared about 1 billion euros less circulation compared to the same period of the year.

While Ylka Metaj, director of the Packer's Network, has told Kosovo Press that the measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 have affected many businesses from having circulation and reducing the number of workers.

The “Masses are still a problem, given the time of movement of citizens, while at the same time affecting the reduction of workers, changing schedules for them, then consumption is less. Our request continues to be the same with work permits until 11: 00 p.m. and do not have city restrictions. Pristina has the greatest economic power, no doubt it's having huge chain apricots... Loss are great in the sense that we're noticing both the workers and the reduction of work hours. We can't say that it's the same consumption or flow of money as long as we've worked three hours less and no doubt it's infected”, he points out.

Band Hosey, among other things, has also said government intervention in the economy was late at first, especially with the recovery package, including in June until October, which, according to him, has not become any kind of subsidy business.

This was the period when they faced most of the problems, especially with liquidity, since businesses at that time needed a liquidity for performing operational spending and until they re-generated the market. Also, the intervention, which took place during the months of October, whether it was a subvention of the wage line or some other assistance through the grants, in a report that we have published, we think has been a disproportionate aid and in some cases the assistance that was done for certain categories of businesses is even unjustifiable. Although many sectors have suffered traffic damage and decline over this period, we have several other sectors that have worked all the time, and we think that such proportional and uniform assistance is unjustifiable and more or less without access to”, says Haysa.

According to GAP, the arrival of the diaspora in large numbers at the end of 2020 was an increased income trend from remittances, which could affect an economic recovery as a result of all restrictive measures that have been in force even during the end of the year.

While, the country has already entered an election process that is expected to hold early parliamentary elections on February 14th.