Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2024, published 113rd ILC session (2025)

Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111) - North Macedonia (Ratification: 1991)

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Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. Equality of opportunity and treatment irrespective of race, colour, and national extraction. Ethnic minorities. The Committee notes, from the National Employment Strategy (2021-2027), that the Government is to address the needs of groups at risk in the labour market, including of national minorities, through the implementation of training programmes and job subsidy schemes targeting low-skilled individuals. The Committee further notes, from the 2022 Gender Equality Report of the European Commission (EC Gender Equality Report), that: (1) unemployment among Roma women remains endemic (the rate of employment is at 8 per cent for Roma women and 23 per cent for Roma people in general); (2) the Government adopted the National Action Plan on Protection, Promotion and Fulfilment of the Human Rights of Roma Women and Girls (2022–2024), to enhance economic independence of Roma women; and (3) the top reasons for unemployment of Roma women appear to be discrimination, stereotypes and prejudice, and the lack of skills and formal education. From the 2023 Report of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the Committee notes that: (1) the Government developed and adopted a new Strategy for Inclusion of Roma (2022–2030); (2) in spite of various efforts to improve the situation of members of the Roma community, social marginalization and exclusion still persists, including in access to education and employment and more especially for women; (3) the school system is still largely segregated according to language-streams (Macedonian and Albanian), with pupils of both groups often being taught in separate buildings or in shift-systems, both of which reduce important interactions between children of the two language/ethnic groups. The Committee also notes, from the Fifth Opinion on North Macedonia of the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (the ACFC Report), that: (1) the socio-economic participation of persons belonging to minorities who live in rural areas is characterized by high unemployment, lack of access to education and infrastructure and depopulation; (2) Roma are victims of structural discrimination in the employment, housing, and health sectors and have been hit particularly hard by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic; (3) the share of persons identifying as Albanian employed in the public sector increased between 2015 and 2020 from 18.8 per cent to 20.1 per cent and that of Turks from 1.9 per cent to 2.1 per cent. The respective shares of other national minorities remained stable. Measured against figures from the last census, which however dates 20 years back, this means that the representation of all national minorities except for Bosniaks and Vlachs still remains below their share in the population; (4) Roma employed in the public sector tend to work disproportionally in low-skilled jobs; (5) there is a severe lack of data on socio-economic participation of other ethnic groups than Roma, but data from a 2017 Survey of Quality of Life suggests that poverty and unemployment rates are higher than average also among Albanians and other minorities; and (6) ethnic Albanian children also have below-average enrolment in preschool and university education and are more likely to lag behind their North Macedonian peers (and that the exact reasons for these differences are not known due to a lack of research but it is likely that the fact that many Albanians live in rural areas is one of the explaining variables). The Committee requests the Government to take every necessary step to address stereotypes and prejudices as well as discrimination based on race, colour or national extraction in order to effectively ensure equality of opportunity and treatment of ethnic minorities in the country. It asks the Government to provide information on: (i) any measures taken to this end, including within the framework of the National Employment Strategy (2021–2027) and the Strategy for Inclusion of Roma (2022–2030); (ii) the results achieved, including by providing up-to-date statistical information on the participation of workers from minority groups in the labour market in the private sector; and (iii) the number, nature and outcome of any cases or complaints of discrimination against persons belonging to ethnic minorities dealt with by the labour inspectors, the courts, the CPPD or any other competent authorities.

The Committee is raising other matters in a request addressed directly to the Government.