Albanian youth are rapidly integrating into global employment markets, selling professional distance services from Albania to foreign companies. The international online employment platform "Upwork" has currently registered 3 thousand young Albanians, most of whom have been paid, according to a study by Monitor on this platform.
The number of registrations on the platform increased rapidly during the pandemic, as a survival opportunity for Albanian youth who lost their jobs due to the pandemic in Albania. In February 2021, on the platform "Upwork" were registered 1600 Albanians, mostly young people, while in June 2021, the number of registrations from Albania exceeded 3 thousand people.
From the data processing, it can be seen that most of them have been paid. Youth benefits from distance employment include satisfactory payments. Among them are people who have earned more than 100 thousand euros in less than two years. Most of them have secured a monthly income of about 1 thousand euros per month since the registration period. Among the remote employees are also young people from Kosovo.
Albanian youth provide mainly professional services such as information technology services which are even the highest-paid. Yes, the variety of services is very large, including consulting, risk analysis, architecture, engineering, accounting, translation, marketing, data processing, etc.
Online employment platforms became popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this period, the number of Albanians registered on international employment platforms marked a greater increase than in any other country.
They are well integrated into the telecommuting market because they offer high-quality services at a low cost. For example, most enrollees from Albania offer themselves for $ 10 an hour, while in Europe, professional services for an hour of work cost no less than $ 40-50.
For some services such as architecture and translation, Albanian professionals charge much lower fees than their counterparts in the region and in Europe. According to data from the "Upwork" platform, young Albanian professionals have generally received positive reviews from employers.