"More and more factories of subsidized foreign companies are closing in Serbia", 6 November 2025

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This is what the six-year business "trip" to Serbia of the Danish workwear company Kentaur looked like.

Over 250 people lost their jobs in one day when it closed its factory in Vranje, in the south of the country, without notice, at the end of October.

One of the former Kentaur employees...told RFE/RL that he and his colleagues had no idea what awaited them when they came to work on Monday, October 27th.

"They wouldn't let us enter the company compound. We stood in the rain for an hour and a half. Then the company director held a meeting for us on the street. There was an old forklift that she climbed on and told us how the company was in liquidation," he said.

He adds that the company's lawyer only told the workers that they would be paid their salaries for October and unused vacation days.

"We took the news very hard. You know how it feels when you're raising three children and lose your job overnight," said a former Kentaur employee...

Representatives of local and republican authorities later announced that the company had not announced plans to leave and promised to find a solution for everyone who lost their jobs.

The company did not respond to RFE/RL's questions about the reasons and manner in which they decided to end operations in Serbia.

They previously told the Slobodna reč portal that the factory in Vranje was closed due to the significant deficit the entire company is recording, but also due to the "drastic increase in minimum wages" in Serbia...

The closure of jobs, plants and entire factories of subsidized foreign companies are becoming more frequent in Serbia.

Since the beginning of the year alone, several thousand workers have either already lost their jobs or their layoffs have been announced...

Around 950 people were left without jobs when, in the spring, the Italian textile company Benetton closed its plants in Niš.

They explained their departure by the "serious crisis situation" the company is going through on a global level.

During the same period, over 300 workers at one of the most profitable Chinese companies in Serbia, Johnson Electric, lost their jobs in Niš.

Although it did not leave Serbia, the company "in response to current challenges in the European automotive industry" reduced the number of employees by about 16 percent...

Around 1.900 people will be laid off by the end of 2025 at the...Leoni, which in July announced the closure of production at its factory in Malošište near Niš.

The company, which produces components for the automotive industry in four factories in Serbia, announced that the one they are shutting down is making a significant loss.

...the Turkish textile factory Džinsi, closed its plants in Leskovac this summer. About 700 people were left without jobs.

After 12 years and a series of state subsidies, they left Serbia due to, as they stated, difficulties in business.

Layoffs in Leskovac, which number in the hundreds of jobs, were also announced this year by the South Korean company Jura and the Irish company Aptiv...

After 15 years of operations in Zrenjanin, the German company Drakslmajer announced the closure of its factory.

This manufacturer of automotive components cites the crisis in the automotive industry as the reason...

In early October, US sanctions began to be applied to the Oil Industry of Serbia (NIS), due to Russia's ownership stake in the company.

Also, Serbia has been dependent on gas imports from Russia for decades, and Moscow extended the gas arrangement only until the end of the year, not for three years, as the authorities in Belgrade expected.

Professor at the Faculty of Economics Milorad Filipović points out that foreign companies are now probably targeting some new destinations where their production costs are lower than in Serbia...

Commenting on the departure of certain foreign companies, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said that he had counted on this and that they would go to places where minimum wages were lower.

"They're going to Tunisia, but that's okay, we were counting on that somewhere," he said during a guest appearance on TV Prva on November 3rd...