In Transit: Foreign Workers Use Albania as Stopover to West
During the 2021 elections in Albania, Socialist PM Edi Rama faced complaints from employers about a growing gap in the workforce. The country officially has a high unemployment rate, especially among the young; one in five among those under 30 are jobseekers. However, "sweat-shop" factories producing shoes and clothes for reexport to Western countries and the seasonal but lucrative tourism sector are in dire need of low-paid workers.
The PM who once expressed his happiness about the lack of a unionizing culture in the country offered employers a simple solution: "Import them," he said.
"We have now passed the new law on foreigners, so it is simple: foreign workers from Bangladeshi, Pakistani and India," Rama said while visiting a clothes factory in Shkodra, north Albania.
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