Left behind in Covid times: the impact of the pandemic on job loss and job finding rates of vulnerable groups in Serbia

Purpose This paper aims to analyse COVID-19’s effects on job loss and job finding rate in Serbia, focusing on groups with already low employment before the pandemic, such as youth, women, low-educated and rural areas. Design/methodology/approach The authors exploit the panel structure of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) data for Serbia to analyse if the impact of the pandemic on transition probabilities was different for vulnerable groups and their counterparts during the first year of the pandemic. Findings The results indicate that stagnation in overall employment growth in Serbia during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis resulted from decreases in new hiring rather than increases in job losses. However, trends differed for vulnerable groups. Young workers faced the highest increase in job losses, partly due to their higher shares in informal wage employment. In contrast, decreases in job finding rates were particularly high among low-educated and in rural areas. Practical implications After the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, employment opportunities of vulnerable groups further deteriorated, and already existing labour market inequalities were exacerbated. These effects are partially due to policies implemented to mitigate the crisis, which focused on preserving permanent employment while leaving vulnerable workers and groups unprotected. Originality/value The authors investigate the annual effects of the first year of the pandemic in a country with a large informal sector and explore the role of vulnerable groups’ job characteristics in transition changes.