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Albanians leave, foreigners take jobs: the map of the labor market in the country is changing

2026-06-02 12:54:40Biznes SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
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The waiter serving you in a restaurant, the hotel cleaner, the babysitter or the factory worker are very often no longer Albanian, but foreigners. In tourist cities, in service businesses, in construction or industry, the presence of foreign workers has now become a common reality of the Albanian labor market.

What was once the exception is now the norm. Businesses are filling the gap in local labor with workers from Asia, Africa, and other countries in the region, while Albanian emigration and population decline are profoundly changing the structure of the country's labor market.

Official data made available to Ekofin.al by the Ministry of Interior shows that during 2025, 13,335 unique residence permits with employment motivation were registered, while applications were even higher, over 19 thousand. The figures include both employees and self-employed people and clearly reflect the increasing dependence of the Albanian economy on foreign labor.

In total, permits have been issued to citizens from 122 countries around the world. India leads the list with 2,490 unique permits for workers, followed by Egypt with 2,064 and Turkey with 1,009. Citizens from Italy, Myanmar and the US are also working in Albania, showing that the Albanian market is becoming increasingly international.

In the tourism sector, especially during the summer season, businesses report that finding Albanian staff has become increasingly difficult. Restaurants and hotels are relying on waiters, receptionists, kitchen workers and cleaning staff brought in from abroad to cover the needs of the season.

The same situation is emerging in the construction, tailoring and manufacturing industries, where many factories are hiring foreign workers due to a shortage of local labor. Businesses complain that young Albanians are leaving for European Union countries or no longer prefer professions associated with intensive work and relatively low wages.

The change is also being felt in everyday life. Albanian families are increasingly hiring foreign nannies for their children or the elderly, while in many tourist areas, Asian or Arabic languages ??are more often heard among service staff than Albanian dialects.

Meanwhile, Albania is not only attracting foreign employees, but also entrepreneurs. Italy leads the way in unique self-employed permits with 229 registered, followed by Turkey and the US. This shows that the country is also being seen as a relatively low-cost market for investment and business development.

Economic experts consider this transformation a direct consequence of the demographic crisis and mass emigration of recent years. Albania is facing a severe shortage of labor in basic sectors of the economy, while businesses are being forced to seek solutions abroad.

Paradoxically, a country that for decades exported immigrants to European labor markets is now importing workers to keep its economy running. And with the current rate of departure of young Albanians, experts warn that this phenomenon will become even more visible in the coming years. / ekofin.al


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