Young people are leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina en-masse and in 50 years the country could end up with a population of some 1,600,000, while the number of working-age adults could be the same as those who are retired which “no economy in the world could withstand,” the deputy head of Bosnia’s Statistics Agency, Fadil Fatic, told N1 on Thursday.

“In a way, we have made projections for the next 50 years. We have several types of data processing, projection estimates. According to one analysis, in 50 years there will be 1,600,000 inhabitants in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Fatic said, adding that this is “extremely bad.”

He said that the estimates for youth emigration in Bosnia were made based on data by Eurostat.

“The number has increased in recent years, especially when we compare the years 2019 and 2018,” he said, explaining that about 42,000 working permits were issued to Bosnians in 2018 and 71,000 the next year.

“The trend of an increase can be seen and it shows what the situation is like and how many people are leaving for foreign countries (…) We have come to a situation where we could end up having the same number of people in the working-age population and those above 65 years of age and above, which no economy in the world could withstand,” he said.

Fatic also revealed data on how many people have lost their jobs recently. He compared figures from December last year and June 2020.

“It can be clearly seen that on the state level there are 26,000 fewer people employed. In this same period, on the state level, there were 20,000 more people registered at the unemployment office,” he explained.