About 50,000 people have lost their jobs in Serbia since the beginning of the epidemic, mostly those who worked illegally, mostly seasonal workers, and although there have been various announcements that there will be a big wave of layoffs, this has not happened yet, said the president of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Serbia (SSSS), Ljubisav Orbovic.
The help that the state gave to the economy in the first outbreak of the epidemic did a large part of the work, Orbovic believes. Although it was not financially large, it managed to protect jobs, so there were not a huge number of layoffs.
“Unfortunately, that is not enough and it is obvious that one cannot live on help,” he states and adds that the workers are in great fear of what will happen in the future.
When it comes to workers on temporary-occasional jobs, they are the least secure.
“In such and similar crises, the first to be fired are these people. It is that quiet dismissal, which is not heard or seen. The worker simply has his contract expired, even though he worked for months while there was work under various contracts, replacements and the like, now it remains on the street,” notes Orbovic and adds that such workers are the most difficult to protect because they have accepted to work in that way, 021 reports.
