THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC CRISIS ON UNEMPLOYMENT, EMPLOYMENT AND SMEs DEVELOPMENT IN SERBIA

The establishment of macroeconomic stability, the conducted reformsand the institutional changes in the past years resulted into the improvement in the businessconditions in Serbia. Significant advances were made in 2008 as regards the formulation andimplementation of the policy of development of SMEs, and in the implementation of theEuropean chart on small enterprises. Despite the improvements achieved, the businessenvironment in Serbia is still ranked as insufficiently stimulative for the development of SMEs.In 2009 ,Serbia ranked 93th out of 133 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Index ofBusiness Competitiveness .This country ranks is lower than in any other country in the region.In this context, the importance of the state support to the development and stability of thissector is invaluable, especially because the entrepreneurship sector was most severely hit by theeconomic crisis in Serbia. In addition, the economic has also resulted into the fall in theemployment rate and the rise in the unemployment trend, which will be especially analyzed inthis paper.