What could be expected also came true. In Macedonia live just over 1.8 million inhabitants, although many citizens remained unregistered because the census takers simply did not come to their home or they boycotted, or were afraid of the coronavirus…

What is striking when you look at the number of 1,832,696 registered citizens is the main trump card of SDSM when it was in opposition saying that during the regime 600,000 citizens emigrated from the country. Emigration was the main topic of the elections in 2017, and as a sign of protest shoes were left in front of the government building that symbolized the emigrants.

But, it seems that the census put on the shoes from the performance of SDSM in front of the government building in 2016. What 600,000 people was SDSM talking about in the past years, when the census they organized shows that in the last 20 years the number of inhabitants in Macedonia has decreased by about 180,000 ?! Of course, there is also the reduced birth rate. And let us not forget, in these 20 years, SDSM has been in power for 8 years.

It is not only better work and money that is the reason for the emigration of young people from the country. The trends of leaving in recent years are also for non-economic reasons – they are bothered by pollution, politics, corruption, and in times of open world and when there are no barriers to migration, young people leave easily without hesitation.

Unlike the figures thrown around by SDSM, trying to make a drama for years, official Eurostat data say that 228,000 people emigrated from the Western Balkans to EU countries last year alone. 24,300 of them are from Macedonia. Most people moved to Germany (11,500), followed by Italy and Slovenia. In percentage terms, the number of emigration from Macedonia makes up 2.1 percent of the total population.

An analysis of the Network for Prevention of Brain Drain, National Strategy for Cooperation and Prevention of Outflow of Young and High Quality Staff 2013-2020 is implemented only 11 percent, ie it is not implemented.

In the past seven or eight years, this strategy has been just a piece of paper thrown in the drawers, the institutions do not know it exists, there is no inter-institutional communication and joint action. The problem is real, it exists and it should be essentially approached, said the Network.

What should really worry SDSM is the reduction of the working age population in recent years. The latest data from the State Statistical Office, including the last quarter of 2021, show extremely negative movements in the labor market since the beginning of the covid crisis.

For the first time in history, there is a decrease in the number of people aged 15 to 79, which shows that we are disappearing as a nation.

Nearly 10,000 Covid-19 deaths, youth emigration and declining birth rates were reflected in a reduction in the total working-age population by 3,373 persons from the first quarter of 2020 to the last quarter of 2021.

Birth rate is a big problem in all of Europe, with the exception of 2-3 countries like Ireland and Turkey, but that is why European countries are working on stimulation. In Macedonia, the government has not shown interest in the that problem.