In many countries in Eastern and South Eastern Europe, labor shortages and population decline are taking on ever more dramatic forms. This emerges from studies by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Comparisons (wiiw).
Countries such as Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania, Poland, Croatia and Ukraine would lose more than 20 percent of the working population by 2045, they say. "This has never happened before in peacetime," said wiiw expert Richard Grieveson when presenting the forecast for 2019 to 2021.
Hungary is heading for a strong downturn
In Hungary, an extremely large number of companies complained about a labor shortage. Anyway, the heavily export-dependent country, which has had remarkably good growth rates with Poland in recent years, is heading for a particularly strong downturn, Grieveson said. One reason for this is the weakening demand from Germany and China, it says at wiiw.
The fastest growing economies, according to the institute, will be Kosovo, Albania and Moldova. Despite the increased oil price, Russia will remain a laggard in growth due to its structural problems and economic sanctions.