News

Yavor Aleksiev, Victor Trichkov* and Georgi Vuldzhev*

The limited own resources of the Bulgarian municipalities have transformed the successful utilization of European resources in a vital prerequisite for the implementation of a number of regional projects. The widely discussed “addiction” to European money is completely understandable in view of the modest resources of the municipalities themselves to ensure their capital expenditures.

As of January 31, 2015 Bulgarian municipalities have received nearly 4.1 billion lv. as beneficiaries of the structural and cohesion funds of the EU. This is only the value of the amounts that have already been paid. The average utilization rate per capita [1] for the country is 564.9 BGN/capita. This is 49% higher than last year’s 379.8 BGN/capita. In other words, the amount that municipalities have received in only one year is equivalent tohalf of the total amount paid in the period between the country's accession in the EU and January 31, 2014. This trend of faster utilization reflects both the accelerated payment at the end of the previous program period and the increasing project capacity and experience of the municipalities themselves.

Last year the IME made a similar comparison of the amount of funds utilized by the structural and cohesion funds of the EU and the population of the Bulgarian district and municipalities. The main conclusions of our analysis are confirmed by this year’s data:

• The utilization rate of the European funds by the municipalities as beneficiaries of EU structural funds is very uneven throughout the country. When compared to the population it varies from 4 829 BGN/capita in the municipality Konstinbrod to 0 BGN/capita person in Gramada.
• No territorial dividing lines can be observed in the utilization of EU funds, at least with regard to Northern and Southern Bulgaria. The same applies to the size of municipalities. There are a number of smaller municipalities who successfully implement European projects, as well as a number of large municipalities that are far less successful.

District level

Once more Gabrovo is the champion in utilization of European funds - 1360 BGN/capita as of 31/01/2015, the second, as well as last year, ranks Burgas (BGN/capita). Followed by Lovech (BGN/capita), managing to overthrow the Sofia district, which last year was the third. The lowest utilization rate is in the districts of Sliven (349 BGN/capita), Ruse (309 BGN/capita), and Kyustendil (286 BGN/capita).

The difference between the district with the most and least utilized resources increased from 787.7 BGN as of 31 January 2014 to 1 074.6 BGN as of January 31, 2015, i.e. differences in the extent of utilization intensified during the last year.

Municipal level

If the data on the utilization on municipal level is to be juxtaposed against thelocal population, most funds per capita were spent by the municipality Konstinbrod – 4 829 BGN per capita (population of 17 265 people). The total amount of funds utilized by the municipality as a beneficiary under the operational programs is 83.4 million BGN as of January 31^st, 2015, the municipality has contracts for about 22 million BGN. In comparison, Karlovo municipality where over 50 thousand people live, managed to utilize only 17.1 million BGN or nearly five times less for three times larger population.

• 44 municipalities have utilized more than 1,000 BGN per capita. Among them are Kostinbrod, Pirdop, Hisar, Byala, Sozopol and Krichim who have utilized more than 3,000 BGN per capita.
• 37 municipalities have utilized under 1000 BGN/capita, but above the average 565 BGN/capita for the country. Blagoevgrad municipality occupies the last position in that group with utilization rate of 568.17 lv/ person.
• 152 municipalities (58% of all in the country) have utilized between 565 and 100 BGN. This group, as always, is the biggest one. Sofia, as well as Plovdiv, Ruse and Pleven are all part of this group.
• In 30 municipalities less than 100 BGN/capita have been utilized. The number of such municipalities in 2014 was 52.

In 2015 once again there is a high number of municipalities (30 total) in which the resources utilized as of the 31^st of January are under 100 BGN/capita. Last year the district centers of Plovdiv and Kyustendil were in this group, but this year round, they have utilized 123.4 BGN/capita and 161.7 BGN/capita, respectively. As of 31.01.2015 the only municipality which hasn’t utilized any resources via the EU structural programs is Gramada.

It is notable, that in a short one-year period (from 31.01.2014 to 31.01.2015) the largest amount of resources in absolute terms has been utilized in the Varna district’s municipality Byala (1600 BGN/capita), and other holiday resort municipalities like Sozopol (BGN/capita), Nesebar (BGN/capita), Pomorie (BGN/capita) and Bansko (BGN/capita) as well as MalkoTarnovo (BGN/capita).

Comparing the 30 municipalities which have utilized less than 100 BGN/capita of the population and the 30 best performing municipalities in the country, we see that there are no clear territorial tendencies in the levels of utilization of EU funds. What we can see however, is a strong concentration of municipalities with a high level of utilization of funds in the district of Plovdiv and a concentration of municipalities with a low level of utilization of EU funds in the district of Vidin. Maybe the most homogenous territorial “clusters” of municipalities from the standpoint of received resources are:

1. Sofia, Pazardjik and Plovdiv – nine of the 30 municipalities with the highest level of utilization and only one of the 30 municipalities with the lowest level of utilization are located in this cluster.
2. Varna and Burgas – contains six of the total 30 municipalities with the highest utilization of EU funds and only one from the 30 with the lowest level of utilization.
3. Stara Zagora, Sliven, Haskovo, and Yambol – in this cluster we find one of the municipalities with the highest levels of utilization and seven of the municipalities with the lowest levels of utilization.
4. Vidin, Montana, and Vratsa – here we find only one municipality with a high level of utilization and six of the municipalities with the lowest levels.

The problems with the utilization of EU funds are due to both the administrative weaknesses of some of the smaller municipalities and the low quality of the strategic development documents. The presence or lack of close relations between the local and central state administration also plays a role in determining which municipalities get more projects and which get less.

In the accompanying database (in Bulgarian) you can find the resources utilized by every single municipality in the country, for which there is available information, as of 31.01.2015. The best and worst performing municipalities in each district are highlighted. We have also included a document with the official data (in Bulgarian) of the Informational System for the Management and Monitoring of the EU Structural Funds in in Bulgaria, since their latest data (for undisclosed reasons) is no longer available on their official website www.eufunds.bg.

| data in .xlsx format |

* Victor Trichkov and Georgi Vuldzhev are IME interns.

Yavor Aleksiev

The first quarter of 2015 unquestionably brought good news for the labour market in Bulgaria. According to the NSI, the number of people employed increased by 55.7 thousand compared to the same period of last year. In the first quarter of 2015 47.7% of all people above the age of 15 were employed compared to 46.5% for the same period last year.

At first sight, the recovery of the labour market seems more or less uniform across the country. In Northern Bulgaria the number of employed people is 26.7 thousand higher than that for the same period last year, and in Southern Bulgaria it is 29.1 thousand higher. On an annual basis, the biggest increase in the number of people employed is observed in Varna (28.7 thousand) while the biggest decrease is in Kyustendil (-4.4 thousand).

However, a more in-depth look at the data tells us that, overall, the condition of the labour market in Northern Bulgaria are still disappointing, especially considering the somewhat positive end of last year. If we exclude Varna from the calculations, Northern Bulgaria is actually losing jobs in Q1 2015.

Figure 1: Annual change in the number of people employed (thousands)

Source: NSI

The condition of the labour market in the Northwestern region of the country continues to be extremely severe. The only district in this region in which the number of people employed increased in the first quarter of 2015 is Lovech. At the same time it remains one of the districts with the lowest employment rate in Bulgaria – only 37.7% of the population over 15 years of age is employed. Both the number of people employed and the employment rate have declined in Vidin, Vratsa, and Montana. A loss in jobs was also registered in Pleven, but the simultaneous decrease in population and thus the labor force resulted in a slight annual employment rate increase – from 43.2% to 43.4%.

The tendency of a continuous decline in population is one of the reasons why it is preferable when analysing the recovery of the labour market to include not only the employment rate in the different districts of the country, but also the nominal number of people employed. A lasting positive tendency of growing number of people employed (coupled with a declining population and thus available labour in most districts) can be considered a clear sign for labor market improvement.

Figure 2 should be read as follows:

• Every consecutive quarter with an annual increase in the number of people employed in the different districts is highlighted in green ;
• Every consecutive quarter of annual decline in the number of people employed is highlighted in red;
• A shift in the predominant tendency is shown in white – i.e. if the previous quarter registered a decline, the white field means an increase and vice versa – if the previous quarter registered an increase – the white field means a decrease. A series of white fields means series of increasing and decreasing levels of employment on a yearly basis during consequent quarters without a continuous positive or negative tendency.

Figure 2: Consecutive quarters of growth in the number of people employed

Source: NSI

Some good news

1) Varna is recovering fast

By all indications it seems that 2015 will be the first year since 2009 during which the average annual number of employed people in Varna will remain above 200 000. These stats are significant for two reasons:

• The district needs a high number of jobs in order to reach the pre-crisis levels of employment. Varna is one of the few districts in the country whose population has been stable and even growing in some of the past years (2014 for example). In regions with a declining population even merely stable employment numbers (or a slower decline than in population numbers) leads to an increase in the employment rate. In districts like Varna and Sofia (capital) employment numbers have to be higher than those before the crisis if those districts are to ever reach the pre-crisis employment levels.
• The district of Varna is the only one in Northern Bulgaria which attracts significant everyday migration of workers. This means that a lot of people from neighbouring districts leave the area in which they live in order to work on the territory of Varna. The improvement in the situation of the labour market in district Varna has an impact on neighbouring districts as well , for example the Shumen district, where the number of people employed is rising on an annual basis for the sixth consecutive quarter.

2) There are other provinces in Northern Bulgaria which are improving

Positive tendencies are observed in Veliko Tarnovo, where the number of people employed held steadily over 100 000 people and registered a sixth consequent increase on an annual basis. Already in 2011 Veliko Tarnovo displaced Ruse as the district with the highest employment numbers in the Northern central region of the country – a tendency which is likely to persevere in the years to come. After a long period of decline in the number of jobs a positive turn can be observed in the province of Targovisthe as well.

3) In the southern part of the country the most significant improvement is in Stara Zagora where the number of people employed increased by 11.1 thousand. The district of Burgas also experienced its best first quarter for a number of years.

Some bad news

1) The positive data for Southwestern Bulgaria are due only to Sofia (c)

If we exclude Sofia (c) from our calculations the labour market in Southwestern Bulgaria remains in crisis. In the districts closest to the capital – Sofia (district) and Pernik, there are some positive labor market signs, but Kyustendil and Blagoevgrad continue registering record lows in employment numbers. The labour market recovery in these districts is yet to begin.

2) Plovdiv is losing employment for the second consequent quarter

After a long period of rising number of people employed, Plovdiv registered a second consequent quarter of decline. Considering the big number of jobs in the area (280 000 in the last several quarters) the loss of a few hundred employed will hardly exert a serious influence on the average annual employment rate in the area, and it is likely that this decline will be offset in the second quarter of the year.

Even though the employment data is positive for the economy overall, we can clearly see than on a local level the labour market remains depressed in large parts of the country (notably in the Northwest and the Southwest with the exception of the capital). There are still areas (like Blagoevgrad and Kyustendil), which register record lows with regard to the number of people employed. We can also see that the positive tendencies in some districts have come to an end (for example in Plovdiv). For the moment however, the news are predominantly good and a strong second and third quarters for the economy have the potential to “restart” the labour market in some of the underperforming districts of the country.

The synopsis of the labor market in 2014 is undoubtedly positive – increasing employment and decreasing unemployment. Although the pace of recovery varies, the majority of the regions show simultaneous drop in unemployment and increased job-creation for the first time since the crisis began.

The regional review shows that:

• Unemployment among people aged 15 and over decreased in 21 districts of the country and increased in 7;
• Employment among the population aged 15 years and older [1] increased in 18 districts, decreased in 9 and one (Gabrovo) remained unchanged;
• In 16 of the districts of the country we observe both a decline in unemployment and an increase in employment compared to 6 such districts in 2013;
• Unemployment increases and employment declines in just 4 districts of the country, compared to 9 in 2013.

Figure 1: Districts, in which employment increases and unemployment falls (green) and districts, in which employment falls and unemployment increases (red)

Source: NSI, IME

However, except for the district of Montana, Northwestern Bulgaria remains in deep crisis. The labor market in districts such as Vidin, Lovech, Vratsa and Silistra (in the North Central region) not only doesn’t show any clear signs of recovery, but also the employment rate among the population over 15 years [2] remains below the critical minimum of 40%.

Sofia (capital) is the good exception of Southwestern Bulgaria, where, despite the relatively favorable last quarter, the labor market in districts such as Blagoevgrad and Sofia (district) continue to experience difficulties in creating jobs.

Despite that, the overview at a regional level for 2014 is markedly positive. In the second half of the year we also observed more rapid job creation in the northern part of the country and specifically - in the districts of Veliko Tarnovo and Varna.

And yet – when will the pre-crisis employment levels be reached?

If the rate of increase of the number of employees in 2014 is maintained, the average annual employment levels from 2007 can be reached this year. The difference is only one percentage point, which can be achieved, according to the variation of the population, with the creation of between 40 and 50 thousand jobs. To reach the record levels of employment in 2008, however, we will need at least another year.

At the regional level, things are a bit different. Some areas such as Kardzhali, VelikoTarnovo, Razgrad and Shumen have already reached the levels of employment of the population of 15 years and older reported in 2008. All of them, however, are areas in which the employment is generally lower than the national average (in some of them even close to 40%).

Of the larger districts in the country Bourgas and Plovdiv are closest to reaching their peak pre-employment levels. Sofia (capital) and Varna are still far away. In the country there are areas, such as Lovech, Kyustendil and Blagoevgrad, where the crisis in the labor market continues unabated.

The question of 2015: "How sustainable is the recovery?"

The answer to this question is not easy. Although the trends in many regions of the country seem stable and are padded with good economic arguments (effective and planned investments in particular regions, improving infrastructure and expectations among businesses etc.), data on the state of the labor market in the country does not inspire much hope that the best is yet to come. Serious problems remain the structural characteristics of the unemployment in our country, the low investment activity and the demographic trends.

For instance, the employment rate of the population over 15 years in Vidin in 2014 was only 38.8%, which is just 0.3 percentage points below the levels of 2008. At the same time, the employment rate of the population aged 15-64 is already higher than that in 2008 - 55.3%, compared to 54.8%.

Higher than pre-crisis employment rates of the working age population is also observed in VelikoTarnovo (60.0% to 58.3%), Razgrad (52.8% to 49.7%), Shumen (58.7% compared to 56.5 %) and Kardzhali (61.1% to 52.9%).

Although there is room for further improvement of the labor market (employment of the population aged 15-64 in 2014 was 61% compared with 64% in 2008), the capacity of the Bulgarian economy to generate employment considering the absence of significant external capital seems limited. A large share of the reserve labor force includes people with primary or lower education, whose employment rate, even though it increased in 2014, remains only 19.2% among the working age population.

The employment rate of people with primary education is 32.3%, while the share of those with secondary and tertiary education that have a job is way higher - 65.2% and 81.7%.

The way forward

If the favorable trends of 2014 continue, soon the topic won’t be the recovery but the expansion of the labor market. The latter definitely needs support from the government. However, the creation of subsidized employment, something relatively common in Bulgaria, is clearly not the way forward. What’s needed is to ensure optimal conditions for the natural creation of jobs.

Increasing the social security burden and the minimum wage (in a period of stagnating consumer prices) is definitely not what the labor market needs at the moment.

The new expansion will need new arguments, including educational reform, revising anachronistic labor laws and improvement of the quality of re-qualification programs.

Something else will be needed as well – a change in the way of thinking of Bulgarians and understanding that personal development does not stop when one finishes school/ university, but is a life-long process.

[1] The employment rate of the population aged 15 and over is somewhat inert indicator, which is influenced strongly by the deteriorating age structure of the population. Due to the increasing life expectancy in the country and therefore the increasing share of the population aged 65+ (two factors which are reflected in the denominator of the equation), this ratio is less sensitive to the increase in the number of employees than, for instance, the employment rate of people aged 15-64. However, it remains representative of the overall social and economic situation of the country's regions.

[2] Even among population aged 15-64, employment in these areas remains well below the national average.

Since 2012 the Institute for Market Economics investigates the condition and development of socio-economic processes on a regional level in Bulgaria. The current analysis looks at the condition of some aspects of the healthcare system in the country, as well the population’s satisfaction with the provided services.

There are two main conclusions that stand out as result of our analysis of regional healthcare systems and  the our two nationwide surveys. The first one is the huge differences between the access of the population to doctors, medical professionals and healthcare infrastructure, which raises questions about the accessibility of health services and their efficiency. The second conclusion is that the presence of more hospital beds per capita, more doctors, nurses, emergency teams etc., does not necessarily mean higher quality of healthcare and better satisfaction with the services that are provided.

Judging by the number of beds in Multiprofile Hospitals for Active Treatment (MHATs) per 10 000 people in the different regions in 2012, the best acess to medical services is in Montana, Pleven and Targovishte, and the worst – in Bourgas, Pernik and Blagoevgrad. At the same time in some regions, such as Montana, the big number of hospital beds is focused in a small number of MHATs, which restricts the access of the population to hospital services. At the same time Bourgas has one of the lowest hospital-beds-to-population ratios, but is characterized by relatively high number of hospitals, which improves the access to healthcare.

In most regions there are similar ratios between doctors and population, but the difference between the regions with the least and the most specialists are significant. This difference can be as big as 4 times in the internal diseases specialists and orthopedics in 2012. If we take a look at pediatricians, in Sofia-Capital there are three times as many specialists as the second best region – Gabrovo, and nearly 29 times as much as the region with the least amount of these specialists – Sofia-Province. The data for the relatively high amount of pediatricians in Gabrovo in 2012 is surprising, when taking into account that the region has one of the worst demographic conditions.

There are big differences in the subject of availability of medical personnel, such as doctor’s assistants. At the same time there are differences present with the nurses and lab assistants, but the differences between different regions as well as between the regions with the highest and lowest number of nurses and lab assistants per capita are significantly lower.

The data for the presence of emergency medical teams shows, that in 2010 some of the least populated areas have the highest number of EMTs per 100 000 people, while densely populated regions, such as Sofia-Capital and Plovdiv have the lowest proportion of emergency medical teams per capita, while at the same time top the charts in teams per 1000 sq. km., which points towards the presence of significant inefficiencies within the emergency medical care system.

Besides objective data for the condition of health care supply on a regional level, a lot of questions are raised by the sociological research on population health care satisfaction, which IME is performing in the past several years. It shows that regions with similar indicators for hospital beds and medical personnel have completely different service quality ratings. Such examples are Kiustendil, Haskovo, and Ruse, where the healthcare infrastructure is comparable, but in 2012 only 8.3% of respondents would qualify the healthcare services as good, compared to 35.4% in Haskovo and 68.1% in Ruse. In other words, the presence of good healthcare infrastructure (high number of hospitals and beds) and medical personnel is a prerequisite for better accessibility of the health care service, but not a quality and patient satisfaction guarantee.

Noteworthy is also that often a high percentage of lower ratings of the healthcare system goes hand in hand with high corruption perception.  Such negative examples are regions with big cities like Sofia-Capital, Bourgas and Plovdiv, which are amongst the “top five” in both corruption perception and the ratings of the work of the healthcare system.

Big differences between the regions, both in regards to healthcare infrastructure, as well as population ratings of health services show that the healthcare system has problems not only on national, but on regional level too. Problems are not isolated strictly to the healthcare’s access to finances and specialists, and they also decrease the quality of services, available to patients.

| download the full report - BG |

Since 2012 the Institute for Market Economics (IME) analyzes the social and economic development of Bulgaria’s regions. For your consideration, we present “Regional Profiles: Policy Proposals 2015”.

| download the policy paper |

Summary

The regional development data for the past ten years highlights the need for drastic change of the regional development philosophy. Although policy makers are starkly aware of many of the current problems, the approach for dealing with them remains decidedly administrative and centralized, which diminishes the efficiency of most policy measures.

Furthermore – to this day Bulgarian regions remain hostages to political interests and to a large degree are deprived of the opportunity to resist the negative demographic, sociological and economic tendencies taking place within their boundaries.

The problems of local communities can be best recognized at the local level.

At the same time a big part of EU funds are spent on projects and activities that are not directly related to the problems of local communities. In the long term the local executive bodies’ insufficient resources and lack of fiscal independence is bound to accelerate communities’ degradation and undermine the democratic process.

The recommendations, outlined in “Regional Profiles: Policy Proposals 2015”, are a result of IME’s three years work in the field of regional development.

• The recommendations on regional finances aim to restore the link between “political representation” and “taxation” at the local level, as well as to provide local autorities woth real financial incentives for attracting investments and creating jobs. The leading amongst them is the idea for automatically redirecting one fifth of income tax revenue to municipalities on the principle “money follows the ID card”.
• The recommendations on labor market flexibility will help decrease the negative effects of various administrative decisions on the working population and companies in the poorest regions of the country. Amongst them are the introduction of flexible tools that can help seasonal employment and improve the evaluation of nation-wide legislation such as increasing the insurance weight or the minimum wage on the local level.
• The recommendations on business environment and investments will help to increase the involvement of local authorities with local socio-economic processes. Local investment strategies must emphasize on the training and education of the labor force, and the efforts must be redirected from utilization of EU funds to creating a better environment for private capital.

| download the policy paper |

For more information:

• Business environment and investments: Desislava Nikolova, senior economist at IME, dnikolova@ime.bg, (02) 952 62 66
• Local finances: Petar Ganev, senior economist at IME, ganev@ime.bg, (02) 952 62 66
• Labor market: Yavor Aleksiev, IME economist, yavor@ime.bg, (02) 952 62 66