CHRIS PAVLOVSKI

REGIONAL NEWS

“The latest data and forecasts indicate that, in the period from 1989 to 2050, the largest emigration and population decline will be recorded in the Western Balkans - BiH as much as 29%, Serbia as much as 24%, Croatia as much as 22%, and Albania as much as 18%” ~ FRANC BOGOVIČ,

MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

SLOVENIA ACQUIRES NEW TRAINS

In the first half of this year, the number of passengers on the trains of Railways of Slovenia is 36 per cent higher than in 2021. Up until now, 52 new Stadler trains have been running on the railways of this Slovenia and the region. Passengers have 21 single-deckers, 10 electric double-decker trains and 21 single-decker diesel trains at their disposal. The procurement was announced at the beginning of the year and realized recently. During the delivery of models that reach speeds of up to 160 km per hour, representatives of the state-owned company announced that a tender for the purchase of another 20 sets, from the same manufacturer, is underway.

LARGEST SOLAR POWER FARM IN NORTH MACEDONIA OPENS

The Slovenian company GEN-I launched a 17 MW solar power farm in North Macedonia, the largest in the region. It is expected to produce 25,000 MWh of electricity per year, which is enough to power more than 5,500 homes. The solar farm is located near the village of Azambegovo, municipality of Sveti Nikola, in the central part of the country, 25 km from the town of Štip. The power plant has 31,772 solar panels and occupies an area of 300,000 square meters, according to the announcement of the Government of North Macedonia.

CROATIA AIRLINES PLANS COASTAL NETWORK EXPANSION IN 2023

Croatia Airlines plans to expand its network from the country’s coast during the 2023 summer season after launching a number of new routes from Split this year. Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News, the carrier said, “This summer season, Croatia Airlines launched new routes from Split to Amsterdam, Bucharest, Dublin, Milan, and Stockholm. All these new routes achieved the expected results. However, the company sees room for improvement and innovative steps in strategic positioning”. It added, “The company is also planning new routes from Croatia’s other coastal airports in the summer of 2023, but this plan still depends on different factors, both internal and external and will definitely not be ready for publication before the end of the Slot Conference [in Melbourne] in November.

“In 2023, we will publish the first regional report that will accurately measure economic and political stability and rank the region’s economies according to quality of life and business conditions” ~ VIOLETA JOVANOVIĆ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

OF NALED

MONTENEGRO TELEKOM AND ERICSSON NIKOLA TESLA SIGN 5-YEAR AGREEMENT

Crnogorski Telekom and Ericsson Nikola Tesla signed a five-year agreement worth EUR 12.5 million, which will continue the multi-decade cooperation on the maintenance, improvement and modernization of Telekom’s mobile network. The agreement was signed by the executive director of Crnogorski Telekom, Stjepan Udovicic, and the president of Ericsson Nikola Tesla, Gordana Kovačević. Udovicic announced that cooperation with Ericsson Nikola Tesla is very important for Telekom, saying that they will continue to jointly direct resources to strengthen the mobile infrastructure, PR Center reports. “Ericsson Nikola Tesla is a reliable partner with whom we will build a network whose quality will be at the European level.” We are sure that we will continue to work successfully and on the basis of the right values, in order to very quickly modernize the entire network and provide users with the best possible experiences”, said Udovicic.

PEPSICO INVESTING 100M EUROS IN ROMANIAN FACILITY

PepsiCo, Inc. is investing $100 million into its facility in Popesti-Leordeni, Romania. The expansion project will improve three production lines and add an automated warehouse, in addition to other automation capabilities. Construction on the Popesti-Leordeni facility is expected to be completed in 2024 and will double the plant’s current production capacity. The company’s investment comes just after it finished a 5-year, $40-million development plan at its Dragomiresti factory, bringing PepsiCo’s investment total in Romania to over $320 million.

AZERBAIJAN TO INCREASE GAS DELIVERIES TO BULGARIA

Azerbaijan’s president said that his country is a reliable partner and will stick to an agreement to double gas exports to the European Union by 2027. Speaking to reporters in Bulgaria’s capital, President Ilhan Aliyev called a new gas interconnector with Greece “a historic achievement and an opportunity for Azeri gas to reach Europe in larger quantities.” Aliyev was in Sofia for the official launch of a new pipeline that will supply natural gas from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria, whose vital supply of Russian gas was cut off in April amid the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the event, he will join heads of state and governments from the region, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The Battle For Talented Workers

IVANA KOVAČEVIĆ, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE FACULTY OF ORGANISATIONAL SCIENCES, DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

While one part of the workforce that belongs to the category that we refer to as ’talents’ abandons Serbia and the region for better working and living conditions elsewhere, thus reducing unemployment levels, successful major companies have long since treated every employee as a talent

Although Serbia is recording ever-lower unemployment rates, that isn’t necessarily good news. That’s because it is partly the result of a constant wave of well-trained people heading abroad and the creation of many jobs that have poor quality working conditions. Alongside these trends that characterise our labour market, there is also digitalisation and automation and the applying of artificial intelligence that isn’t always neutral in decision-making, explains Ivana Kovačević, associate professor of the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Organisational Sciences.

We are witnessing increasing discussion of the future of labour, which is determined to a great extent by technological advances. What issues do these changes raise when it comes to the management of human resources? Job descriptions are changing as a function of the digital transformation process, with some jobs becoming redundant and automated, in parallel with the appearance of new ones, while new skills are being sought from employees. Employees are expected to be highly digitally competent and to engage in continuous training that should keep pace with the dynamics of the development of technological progress. Considering that software is being constantly upgraded, the training of employees can no longer be directed only towards specific tools, but rather must be generally directed towards work in technology-mediated environments. That creates additional stress among the majority of employees, and the concept of technostress, which is linked precisely to the inability to adapt to “cooperation” with technologies, has recently become a domestic issue.

We were confronted during the course of last year by the new global phenomenon of mass resignations as a result of the dissatisfaction of employees with the conditions provided by employers. How widespread is this trend really, and is it present in Serbia? Existing data support the claim that we have a high turnover of employees, particularly in certain industries. However, as is always the case with statistical data, deeper analysis is required in order to really draw conclusions. Our labour market also isn’t immune to global changes, but it should be considered that a large number of employees in Serbia work for low wages and that there aren’t really many options. Employer-employee negotiations on working conditions are reserved for the category of employees with vocations that are in higher demand and who possess skills that are in short supply on the labour market.

We are witnessing a relatively low unemployment rate and a lack of workers in Serbia and the region for the first time in many years. How do such trends impact on the pursuit and retention of talented workers? The battle to entice talented individuals is certainly intensifying and has long since had global dimensions. However, the issue of which criteria are used to calculate the employed and unemployed remains unresolved in Serbia. Similarly, following on from the previous answer, a certain percentage of the workforce that belongs to the category we refer to as talents is abandoning Serbia and the region for better working and living conditions elsewhere, thus reducing unemployment levels. We then come to the fact that successful major companies have long implemented the practise of treating every employee as a talent and placing an emphasis on the positive qualities of each individual.