Human resources of informal economy in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about the impact human resources have on the process of economic development, especially the importance that the educational structure and individual business skills have in the informal economy modernization process and its integrations towards a formal economy. The educational structure of the employed in the informal sector was defined by classifying the workforce according to their education levels, and their individual business skills were determined by analyzing the techniques individuals used in the process of improving competitiveness. The analysis was based on the results of a survey research of the structural characteristics and spatial distribution of the informal economy in the Republic of Serbia conducted on a sample of 310 home-based businesses in 2011. The results have shown that the informally employed are as competitive as the formally employed, the educational structure of the informally employed depends on the type of community and the distance from the center; individual business skills depend on the gender structure of the business owner, apart from the type of community and its distance from the center (metropolitan areas).

Cilj istraživanja u ovom radu je da doprinese diskusiji o značaju ljudskih resursa za proces ekonomskog razvoja, posebno o značaju obrazovanja i individualnih poslovnih veština za proces modernizacije neformalne ekonomije i njene integracije u formalne privredne tokove. Ljudski resursi u neformalnom sektoru su analizirani standardnom klasifikacijom radne snage prema nivoima obrazovanja, a individualne poslovne veštine (sposobnosti) analizom tehnika koje su neformalno zaposlena lica koristila u postupku unapređenja konkurentnosti. Analiza je zasnovana na rezultatima anketnog istraživanja strukturnih karakteristika i prostornog razmeštaja neformalne ekonomije u Republici Srbiji, koje je tokom 2011. godine sprovedeno na uzorku od 310 kućnih preduzeća. Rezultati su pokazali da su prema obrazovnom sastavu, a posmatrano u nacionalnim okvirima, neformalno zaposlena lica podjednako konkurentna kao i formalno zaposleni, zatim, da obrazovni sastav neformalno zaposlenih lica zavisi od tipa naselja i distance od Beograda, a da individualne poslovne veštine, pored distance od Beograda i tipa naselja, zavise od polnog sastava ispitanika.