The survey on the 13th salary (November 2016, N=109) shows a strong gap between citizens’ expectations and employers’ practice: 85.32% of respondents say they will not receive a 13th salary this year, while only 3.67% receive it in cash and 0.92% “in goods/services.” An additional 5.50% are unsure, suggesting that the very idea of a 13th salary in Serbia is more of an exception than a standard.
The employment structure explains part of the picture, but does not change it fundamentally. In the sample, 31.19% are unemployed, while the rest are distributed across the private and public sectors: 25.69% work in privately owned domestic companies, 7.34% in EU-owned private companies, 4.59% in private companies outside the EU, 9.17% in the public sector, and 10.09% in state-owned enterprises. Another 10.09% choose “something else” (including pensioners, farmers, students, private entrepreneurs, etc.). In other words, the topic of a 13th salary “touches” both those who work and those who do not, because it is present in public discourse as a symbol of security—but also of inequality.
Looking at past experience, the picture remains consistently negative: 84.40% say they have not received a 13th salary in the past five years, while only 11.93% say they have. This suggests that the 13th salary is not a one-year “crisis anomaly,” but a long-term rarity.
It is also telling how citizens define what a 13th salary actually is. The largest share sees it as a reward for work during the previous year (37.61%), almost the same share as an earned salary that the employer should pay if the company has performed well (36.70%). Only 16.51% interpret it as a “holiday gift.” This matters: most respondents do not view a 13th salary as charity or a luxury, but as something stemming from work and business results—i.e., a question of fair distribution rather than goodwill.
Open comments reinforce the tone: “What 13th salary—I’m happy if I get the 12th,” “a luxury and a pipe dream,” or that in practice it amounts to one-off payments of a few thousand dinars. In these sentences, the 13th salary becomes an indicator of broader job insecurity and the feeling that “normal” work does not translate into “normal” compensation.
Methodological notes: this was an online survey with a sample of N=109 and cannot be considered representative of Serbia’s population.