FfW Bulgarian report (English language) - Fit for Work Europe

2. Introduction
2.1
Why is
workforce
health
in Bulgaria
important?
10
On the road to accession in 2007 and up to now the development of the Bulgarian economy
has been heavily defined by the European context. An extended period of transition from the
post-Soviet economy and adopting the principles of the EU mechanism called for a series of
reforms to support the development of a free market, competitiveness and economic growth.
However, the fast pace of the change, required by the need to level the Bulgarian economy with
other European countries, meant that while the reforms had the potential to improve people’s
lives in the future, they equally increased the risk of unemployment, impoverishment and social
exclusion (Eurofound, 2009).
Until 2008 the employment rate in Bulgaria was one of the fastest-growing in Europe, partly
due to the export growth and the increasing capital flows from the EU (Institute of International
Finance, 2011). In the downturn of recent years, the country’s economy, being dependent on the
external markets, suffered heavily in the machine-building industry, along with metallurgy, woodprocessing,
chemical production, textile and tailoring, construction and real estate (Eurofound,
2009). The Bulgarian National Statistics Institute (NSI) reports just under 56 per cent of the
population aged 15-64 years old in employment. At the same time, the unemployment rate
reached an alarming 15.0 per cent of the population aged between 15 and 64 years old. 1
There are some stipulations that the real extent of unemployment may be even higher if those
individuals without a job, who are not registered with the unemployment agencies (eg selfemployed),
are taken into account. 2
While the Bulgarian economy is starting to recover from the recession following the economic
course of the new government since 2009, it has yet to tackle the issue of a shrinking labour
force. The proportion of the population aged 65 and over has reached 18.5 per cent in 2011 and
is likely to continue growing along with the global trend. 3
Having to achieve competitiveness of the national economy with a smaller labour force, Bulgaria
is understandably keen to place an emphasis on the need to maximise the productivity of its
workforce in order to extract the most economic benefit. Companies may have cut numbers of
employees in order to reduce their costs in the difficult economic situation, possibly resulting in
increased working hours for remaining employees. In Bulgaria at least 17 per cent of workers
were employed on a six-day week with a further 14.4 per cent on a seven-day week, which is a
comparatively high rate in the EU (Tomev, 2009). Studies have also found that for public sector
employees workload and the pace of work have increased in the past five years (Tzenova,
2011b).
1 See Census 2011 http://www.nsi.bg/census2011/index.php
2 Expert interviews
3 See Census 2011 http://www.nsi.bg/census2011/index.php
Fit For Work?