In the first quarter of this year, Serbia saw a total of 2.36 million individuals employed, according to data from the Republic Institute of Statistics. Among them, 1.89 million were employed in legal entities, 414,777 were entrepreneurs, their employees, and self-employed individuals, and 50,909 were individual farmers. Compared to the same period last year, the number of employees increased by 14,833, representing a 0.6 percent rise. Notably, employment in legal entities increased by 0.6 percent, while the number of entrepreneurs, their employees, and self-employed individuals grew by two percent. However, the number of registered individual farmers decreased by 8.1 percent.
Quarter-on-quarter, there was a slight decrease of 0.1 percent in the number of employees, with a decrease of 37 in legal entities, 2,145 in entrepreneurs, their employees, and self-employed individuals, and 942 fewer registered individual farmers. A significant portion of the workforce, totaling 614,522 individuals, was employed in the public sector. Within the public sector, the health and social work sector employed the most individuals, with 163,448 workers, followed by education and culture, with 147,714 employees. State and provincial administrations employed 133,114 people, while local administrations employed 27,587 individuals. Additionally, public companies, both state and local, employed 82,693 and 59,966 individuals, respectively.
In terms of industry distribution, the processing industry employed the largest number of individuals, with 500,666 workers. Within this sector, the highest employment was observed in food production, followed by motor vehicle manufacturing, metal products, and clothing production.
Trade ranked second in terms of employment, with close to 360,000 workers, followed by construction (126,804), transport (129,891), and professional and scientific activities (141,563). Approximately half a million individuals were employed in state administration, defense, mandatory social insurance, education, and healthcare combined, with the highest number of workers in health and social care (177,078), followed by state administration, defense, and mandatory social insurance (157,299), and education (152,373).
Geographically, over a third of employees, totaling 841,029 individuals, worked in Belgrade. Vojvodina followed with 594,916 workers, while Šumadija and Western Serbia employed 536,656 individuals. In Southern and Eastern Serbia, 391,980 individuals were employed.
Regarding entrepreneurs, their employees, and self-employed individuals, Šumadija and Western Serbia led with 126,729 workers, followed by Vojvodina (105,727), Belgrade (100,019), and Southern and Eastern Serbia (82,302).
