Serbia needs smaller more efficient administration

BELGRADE - Serbia needs a smaller and more efficient administration, and the government will try to keep the number of layoffs minimal and focus them on party apparatchiks who are not doing their job well, Serbia's Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday.

"Also, they will not be to blame because they are members of the Democratic Party, who certainly number the most, or the Socialist Party of Serbia or the Serbian Progressive Party, but because they have not done a good job," Vucic said explaining the upcoming downsizing in the administration at the end-of-the-year news conference at the government headquarters.

"It will be, I hope, a smaller number than the one spoken of and it will help create a healthy government and we will have to do that," he stressed.

When asked how many people from the public sector could lose their jobs, he responded that the final numbers were known, but that the number of those who would simply go into regular retirement was not yet known.
"I got the first data today and the number of people retiring is bigger than we expected," he said, adding that a number of women would probably want to retire early because of the changes to the law on the Pension and Disability Insurance, which extended the retirement age limit for women gradually from 60 to 65 years.

Vucic stated he was not pleased with the way the media were reporting on the topic, adding that those steps were needed to establish a more efficient administration, and that the government would try to keep the number of layoffs minimal.

When asked to confirm whether 27,000 people would lose their jobs, as claimed by some media, he replied that the Fiscal Council had estimated that 15,000-20,000 people would retire....