WIIW The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies - Wiener Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche

The South Eastern Europe (SEE) Jobs Gateway Database is a joint project of the World Bank and the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw).

It provides a comprehensive set of labour market indicators for the six Western Balkan countries Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and Serbia, as well as for the four EU peer countries Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary.

The database is accessed via a user-friendly online tool that allows the creation of charts and the downloading of data. Access to the data is free of charge.

The SEE Jobs Gateway Database

The database covers a unique and detailed set of labour market indicators based on Labour Force Surveys (LFS) of the Western Balkan countries and Eurostat. The dataset is harmonised across indicators, age groups and educational attainment. It currently includes more than 19 700 time series, available on an annual and quarterly basis (where available), from between 2010 and 2021.

The database covers four main areas:

• Key economic indicators (GDP, labour productivity, inflation)
• Labour market – LFS data (working-age population, employment including informal employment, atypical employment, unemployment)
• Labour market – administrative data (registered unemployment data from Public Employment Services)
• Data on earnings and unit labour costs

The SEE Jobs Gateway Database serves as an easy-to-use reference tool that allows comparisons across indicators, countries and time periods. It is an important source of information for national policy makers, international organisations, international financial institutions and the academic community.

Based on this database, annual flagship reports are published by the World Bank. Now, a Special Topic on Employment in new greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Western Balkans was released.