Self-employment, through the opening of a shop, service unit, or the provision of professional services is the most common form of earning a living in Albania.

According to INSTAT data, at the end of 2020 almost 32% of employees in the country were self-employed.

Other Eurostat data show that Albania has the highest self-employment rate in Europe and more than double compared to the European Union average of 13.3% at the end of 2020.

In second place in Europe is Greece, with 28.4% of the total number of self-employed employees, followed by Italy with 20.1% and Turkey with 19.3%.

From the region, the highest percentage of self-employment is in Serbia, with 19.2%, followed by Montenegro with 17.2%. The lowest is in beriu Macedonia with 17.2% (data for Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina are missing).

The self-employed, mostly with 8/9 year education

Most of the self-employed in the country have low education. According to INSTAT, almost 41% of employees with 8/9 years of education earn a living through self-employment.

Even those with secondary education tend to open their own businesses, with self-employment accounting for 34% of this category.

It is different for people with higher education, who seem to find it easier to find a job in businesses that they have not opened themselves. Only 12% of employees with higher education are self-employed.

Men are more likely to start a business, with 38% of them being self-employed, versus 25% of women.

According to age groups, the highest percentage of self-employment results in persons who are over 65 years old (60%) and the lowest for young people up to 24 years old (20%)

In the second quarter of 2021, 13% of employees aged 20-64 in the EU were self-employed, according to Eurostat. Other employees were mainly classified as employees (86%) with a smaller percentage (less than 1%) working as contributing family workers.

Among the self-employed, men were more than women (67% vs. 33%). In contrast, there was a fairly equal divide between men and women who were categorized as employees (52% vs. 48%).

Examining the data by age groups, a higher percentage of persons aged 55-64 were self-employed (17%) compared to other age groups; 4% of those aged 15-24 were self-employed and 13% of those aged 25-54.

In addition, self-employment seems to be slightly more common among employed people with a low level of education (16% of people with a low level of education were self-employed compared to 12% of people with a high level of education and 13% with high level of education).

(Source: Monitor)