There are a little over two million people in work in Bulgaria; according to different estimates there are as many Bulgarians working abroad, some say even more. This is a phenomenon that has its positive, but also its negative impact and consequences.

On the positive side – it is a good thing that people who have not been able to find suitable employment inside the country have struck it lucky and found a job abroad. This brings the unemployment level in Bulgaria down and instead of living on benefits at home, they are able to send money to relatives back home, which makes them foreign investor No. 1 for Bulgaria. One more good thing – working in countries that are more economically and technologically advanced, they improve their work skills and general knowledge and are integrated into societies that are more advanced in every respect. Nonetheless, living and working thousands of kilometers away, they have kept their national identity, respect of their nation’s traditions and customs as well as their Christian Orthodox beliefs. This does not apply to Bulgarians of Turkish descent who are Muslim, whether they live in Bulgaria or elsewhere, though it should be noted they are Bulgarian, i.e. European Muslims. Bulgarians working abroad practice different professions, though they are mostly low-skilled labourers with a spattering of managers, researchers or businessmen. In other words, by and large, Bulgarians do the jobs the locals are reluctant to take up, jobs that are low-paid, carry no prestige and do not require particular skills or qualification. But with the chasm in the standards of living in the advanced countries and in Bulgaria even these lowly jobs are better paid abroad than people with comparable skills could possibly dream of here, in Bulgaria.

There are other positive effects of the export of labour. However it is the negative consequences of this labour emigration – brain drain but also drainage of low and mid-level workers – that have been in the focus of public attention.

Significantly, two studies of what professions are in demand most on the labour market in Bulgaria clearly show that around 70 percent of employers are experiencing a shortage of mid-level staff like technicians, drivers, accountants, hotel staff. The explanation is that they are not on the labour market at all – they are abroad. Here we should add doctors though that is only logical, seeing as 60 percent of the people graduating medical universities in recent years are emphatic that as soon as they get their hands on their diplomas they will get on a plane and leave.

There is one more aspect of labour migration that raises concerns - the demographic crisis. The population is declining and aging dramatically. The birth rate plummets with every passing year as people of child-bearing age trickle out of the country. Bulgaria has been turning into a country of the old and ailing who are in need of care, a country with not enough people who are employed to make sure there will be retirement pensions for the elderly. At this time there are 1.5 pensioners per every person who is in work. Their pensions are literally miserly and humiliating, not enough to afford to buy their medication even. But the prospect is even more dire.

In the past, quite a few EU countries have encountered the kind of problems Bulgaria is now facing – Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece. Yet now they are attracting workers from abroad, including from Bulgaria. How did this radical transformation come about? It is obvious there cannot exist any universal recipe, yet it is no less obvious that without economic growth, stimulated in every way possible by the state no significant results are to be expected. And this, given that nowadays the situation is better than it used to be back in the day when southern Europe was the poor cousin because the European Union is stronger now and has more effective levers for stimulating regional growth and ironing out disproportions. Well, that is what cohesion funds are for!

English version: Milena Daynova