“I have returned from Greece along with my husband and two children. There was a crisis there. Now we will live in Tirana”. This is the decision that my friend, Sofika Laska made about her family a few years ago, when I ran onto her in the streets of the capital. Sometimes later, I learned from her that she had found a job as an accountant, putting an end to the period of “emergency” that she found herself in after leaving the neighboring country, where she had been living for years.
This is only one of the stories that one hears from the thousands of migrant workers who have decided to come back to Albania and build a life here after living so many years abroad. In fact, even today, the Albanian state has no exact figures about their total because migrant workers are not obliged to declare that they have returned to their country for good.
“At the moment that a migrant worker crosses the border, he is not legally obliged to state the reason of his return or the time that he will be spending in his country, even if he may have decided to come back for good”, official sources from the Ministry of Interior’s press office told Albanian Free Press in relation to this phenomenon.
This fact is also confirmed by sources from the ministry of Social Affairs and Youth, making it difficult to come up with an accurate figure for this category of people in our country and also to make a projection about its progress in the future.
“The figures that the ministry has, relate to those migrant workers who have returned and who address the emigration offices to seek assistance. The strategy that we have on them doesn’t make it obligatory for them to register”, Silva Banushi, official at the Ministry of Social Affairs told Albanian Free Press.
So, the only official figures about this category are the ones published by the National Employment Service, which depends on the Ministry of Social Affairs, about the migrant workers that have appeared in these offices for a job.
Based on these figures, at the end of 2016, the number of Albanian migrant workers who have returned in the country and registered as jobseekers was 717, and 289 of them were new registrations. The majority of them are reported to have returned from Greece. They account for three quarters of them and 84% have stated unemployment as the reason why they have returned. Also, according to the same figures, most of these migrant workers were heads of families and in 75% of cases they had been unemployed for a long time.
DISTRIBUTION
The majority of those who return live in Elbasan and Kukes
The majority of Albanian migrant workers who decide to return to their country for good, live in the district of Elbasan and district of Kukes. This data is once again offered by the National Employment Service, regarding migrant workers that have registered at this office as jobseekers. According to this institution, the majority of those people over the age of 40 were from the regions of Korça, Vlora and Lezha. “Almost all of this category of people have only completed high school and once they registered, they sought advice on employment and professional orientation”, experts of this institution say.
REPORT
INSTAT: Around 140 thousand migrant workers have returned
More than 140 thousand migrant workers have returned in the country since 2011. This is the only official figure confirmed until now by an Albanian institution, namely, Institute of Statistics. In 2013, this institution carried out a study on this category dubbed “Return of migrant workers and their reintegration in Albania”. This study remains up until today the only study which covers the return of Albanian migrant workers in the country and after this study, there hasn’t been any official point of referral to know exactly how many of them are part of this category. “As far as returns are concerned, the study suggests that there have been 133.544 Albanian migrant workers from the age of 18 returning to Albania for good for the period from 2009 to 2013. 98.414 of them were men and 35.130 were women”, the study states.
ASSISTANCE
Free professional education and social housing for them
“The aim is to assist migrant workers who return through the process of reintegration, regardless of the way they have returned”. This has been the essence of the Strategy approved by the Albanian government for the reintegration of Albanian citizens who have returned, which is still in power. But this category of people doesn’t seem very eager to be part of this strategy, given that only a few hundred of them have sought assistance for employment to the state. Meanwhile, the state has also offered solutions for this category, such as professional education in order for them to easily integrate in the labor market. Another way of assisting migrant workers is through accommodation and offering them social housing.
