Human capital is in direct correlation with economic growth, i.e. growth of knowledge and skills can work towards accelerating growth. Therefore, one of the priorities in the plans and projections for recovery and accelerated growth is investment in human capital, Finance Minister Fatmir Besimi told a webinar on “Challenges for higher education in the field of economy in the post-COVID-19 period”, organize by the Faculty of Economy.
According to the Minister, one of the pillars of the Strategy for Recovery and Accelerating Economic Growth is investment in human capital, i.e. development of human resources (education, science and health), increased activity of the working population and social protection, which include different measures and activities.
Besimi pointed out that over the past few years, efforts have been directed at allocating more funds in the budget for the areas of education, health and social protection, which has resulted in their multiple increase, the Ministry of Finance said in a press release.
According to the World Bank’s Human Capital Index (HCI), which measures the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18, i.e. conveys the productivity of the next generation of workers compared to a benchmark of complete education and full health, between 2010 and 2020 the HCI value for North Macedonia increased from 0.54 to 0.56. This means that a child born in North Macedonia today will be around 50 percent as productive when she grows up as she could be if she enjoyed complete education and full health. The HCI value for the most developed economies in the world is above 0.8, in the European Union countries it is about 0.75, while in the countries in the region potential productivity is 0.65 on average.
