Currently Working
Overview
Workplace danger is a daily reality for thousands of workers in high-risk sectors such as construction. The handling of this danger — inspection, reporting, and prevention — has followed a linear approach. That approach has not changed in any meaningful way with the arrival of a government that is left-wing on paper over the last six years. Its focus around workplace danger has been and remains the Central Labor Inspectorate, the institution primarily responsible for inspecting, reporting, and monitoring danger at worksites. A defining feature of successive Lëvizja Vetëvendosje governments has been quantitative intervention in the Central Labor Inspectorate. The same promise has been recycled at every election: tenfold, fivefold, multiple increases, and then a promise to raise the number of labor inspectors to 200. That figure has never come close to being reached. At the same time, the Inspectorate has kept roughly the same pace of activity, with a marked increase over the last three years. But this has not qualitatively reduced the number of workplace injuries or fatalities. The actions of successive Kurti governments over the last five years show clearly that worker safety has not been a central focus, and that improving working conditions, increasing safety, and monitoring and reporting more efficiently, rigorously, and frequently have not been genuine goals. This state of affairs needs to change fundamentally, urgently, and transformatively — starting by restoring political focus to worker safety, and then translating that focus into new policies that go beyond the boundaries of current institutions such as the Central Labor Inspectorate and other responsible bodies. CURRENT INSTITUTIONAL SITUATION The Central Labor Inspectorate is responsible for labor inspections as set out by Law No. 08/L-067 on Inspections of the Republic of Kosovo.¹ According to the Kosovo Agency of Statistics, Kosovo had 444,909 active, employed persons in 2025.² According to the General Report on Inspections for 2025, published by the Office of the Inspector General, Kosovo has 64 active labor inspectors.³ According to the Kosovo Business Registration Agency, there are currently 137,346 active businesses across the country.⁴ These statistics let us draw some basic arithmetic conclusions about the real state of the Inspectorate and its work: each active inspector is statistically responsible for 6,952 workers, or 2,146 active businesses, across the entire territory of Kosovo. Even if we count only workers in high-risk workplaces — 12% of the entire active workforce, or roughly 50,000 workers⁵ — each active inspector is still responsible for 781 workers. Below is the Inspectorate's performance for 2021–2024⁶: 2021: With 37 active inspectors, the Inspectorate carried out 10,162 inspections 2022: With 37 active inspectors, the Inspectorate carried out 6,316 inspections 2023: With 62 active inspectors, the Inspectorate carried out 8,114 inspections 2024: With 67 active inspectors, the Inspectorate carried out 12,011 inspections The rise and fall in the number of inspections has not brought about qualitative change in worker safety. Nothing shows this better than the death toll across these years: 9 worker deaths in 2021, 15 in 2022, 11 in 2023, and 7 in 2024. So beyond being quantitatively insufficient, due to the shortage of labor inspectors, inspection also appears qualitatively insufficient — even with more inspectors and a marked rise in the number of inspections, the number of workplace deaths and injuries remains a troubling constant. The year 2025 illustrates this contrast most clearly. The Central Labor Inspectorate reported carrying out 10,812 unannounced inspections⁷ during that year — among the highest figures across these five years, with the exception of 2024. But that year also marks a grim record: 37 worker deaths from unsafe conditions⁸ were recorded in 2025, particularly at construction sites, which remain the most dangerous workplaces. This state of affairs reveals something fundamental: even as the Inspectorate has increased the number of inspections, preventing workplace injuries and fatalities remains one of the largest problems Kosovo's institutions have neither confronted nor built the mechanisms to confront. ¹ Law No. 08/L-067 on Inspections ² Labor Force Survey, Q1 2025 ³ General Report on Inspections 2025 ⁴ Kosovo Business Registration Agency – Open Data ⁵ Labor Force Survey – Kosovo Agency of Statistics ⁶ Statistics from the Central Labor Inspectorate THE FIVE-YEAR PROMISES OF LËVIZJA VETËVENDOSJE Lëvizja Vetëvendosje placed first in the 2019 early parliamentary elections, and together with the LDK formed the government known as "Kurti 1." In February 2020, presenting the governing program of Kurti 1 to the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, then prime-ministerial candidate Albin Kurti pledged that one commitment of his government would be raising the number of labor inspectors from 37 active inspectors to 400.⁹ In other words, the Kurti 1 government's stated goal was a tenfold increase in inspectors to seriously address workplace risk. On February 3, 2021, during the campaign for the early parliamentary elections, Kurti unveiled the "Krejt dhe Drejt" ("All and Fair") program, promising to increase the number of labor inspectors fivefold, with the stated aim of "preventing discrimination against workers and preventing workplace hazards."¹⁰ This time no concrete figure was given, only a multiplier — so the 400 inspectors promised a year earlier dropped to 200 (a fivefold increase). Meanwhile, the number of inspectors remained at 37 throughout that year. ⁹ Government Program Presentation – February 2020 ¹⁰ Government Program Presentation – February 2021 In May 2021, following the election, presenting the governing program to the Assembly of Kosovo, Kurti again promised to multiply the number of inspectors, with the stated aim of protecting workers' rights and improving their working conditions.¹¹ The same promises were repeated during the February 2025 elections. Presenting the Kurti 3 governing program on January 25, Kurti promised to raise the number of inspectors to 200.¹² He made the identical promise again during the 2026 early parliamentary election campaign.¹³ The number of labor inspectors has risen over this period. There are currently 67 active inspectors¹⁴ — double the number from 2021 — but that figure is nowhere near the various government promises made by Lëvizja Vetëvendosje throughout this period. The approach of successive Kurti-led governments to workplace danger has not been serious. The government's focus was consistently narrow: the only promise it made and the only goal it set for itself was increasing the number of inspectors and inspections carried out by the Inspectorate. Between 2021 and 2025, 79 workers lost their lives due to unsafe working conditions. This should make clear the need to explore new mechanisms — at both the central and local level — to prevent workplace injury and death. So far, any response there has been has come only after the fact. 2026 is proof of this. ¹¹ Government Program Presentation – May 2021 ¹² Government Program Presentation – January 2025 ¹³ Government Program Presentation – May 2026 ¹⁴ General Report on Inspections 2025 – Central Labor Inspectorate
Client
Labour Rights
Service
Policy Brief | Lisjan Perolli
Year
2026
2026 For Workers
In just the first four months of 2026, according to media reports, 10 workers lost their lives at work. The Ministry of Labor, Family and War Veterans' Values, once April's worker deaths began reaching alarming levels, responded by issuing a decision directing the Central Labor Inspectorate to "draft an emergency plan for the immediate launch of an extraordinary national inspection campaign."¹⁵ Under this decision, the Inspectorate was ordered to begin immediate inspections, over a 15-day window, of construction sites and other high-risk activities. The Inspectorate began fieldwork on April 16. From April 18 to May 1, as the Ministry's decision required, the Inspectorate published all inspection figures on its Facebook page.¹⁶ The totals for that period were as follows: Inspections: 326 Re-inspections: 165 Work stoppages: 137 Warnings: 129 No violations found: 89 Irregularities corrected: 83 Referrals to police: 4 These published figures show the severe conditions Kosovo's workers face, particularly at construction sites and other high-risk workplaces. Of 326 inspections carried out during this 15-day period, 137 ended in a full work stoppage. Even with advance notice of the inspection campaign, and even with an emergency nationwide push, 42% of inspected worksites still failed to meet basic safe-working conditions and were forced to close. ¹⁵ Decision of the Ministry of Labor, Family and War Veterans' Values ¹⁶ Official Facebook page of the Central Labor Inspectorate 129 of the inspected worksites received a warning. Only 89 (27%) — fewer than a third — received no violation at all. This is an alarming state of affairs for workers whose very job puts them at risk. Even as the Inspectorate launched its emergency campaign in mid-April, 4 workers lost their lives to unsafe conditions. That number is expected to keep rising as the construction season runs at full capacity.
What Needs To Be Done
What can be drawn from examining the government's promises, its actions over more than five years in office, and the Inspectorate's own record, is that addressing workplace danger has never been a serious priority — not for the government, and not for the institutions responsible for worker safety. The unchanged functionality of the Inspectorate and other relevant institutions has not meaningfully reduced the number of workplace injuries or fatalities, nor has it strengthened prevention measures. The rise in the number of inspectors and inspections is itself the proof of this. Workplace fatalities could have been avoided with the right preconditions in place: adequate safety equipment for workers, more of it, stricter and continuous oversight of worksites — with particular emphasis on those classified as high-risk — and better communication between relevant institutions. Above all, the political approach must change fundamentally. Worker wellbeing must first be placed at the center of policy. Then, concretely, the government must build new mechanisms and implement new policies to increase the efficiency and rigor of inspections, make inspection continuous rather than an ad hoc reaction to a crisis, and begin seriously considering new approaches to workplace safety and to preventing danger and fatalities. As immediate measures, the Government of the Republic of Kosovo must: Draft an urgent, longer-term plan for workplace safety, issued by the Ministry of Labor, Family and War Veterans' Values. Urgently increase the human capacity of the Central Labor Inspectorate — new labor inspectors — so that greater inspection coverage extends across construction, other high-risk worksites, and other neglected workplaces. Build new mechanisms, at the central and local level, drawn from international best practice, to address workplace safety and effective inter-institutional communication, so every case of injury or death is treated with the urgency and attention it requires. Establish oversight mechanisms so these steps are continuously monitored, with concrete deadlines set for their launch and completion. The absence of a timeline is itself a way of never addressing the issue. This must change without delay.
