Population census to be conducted between April 1 and 21, 2020

The population census in the Republic of Macedonia in 2020 will be conducted from 1 to 21 April. About 5,000 people will be engaged on field, and this time will be used a combined method that implies besides using field data, and data from registries. It is estimated that this operation will cost up to 8.5m euros.

This is stated by the director of the State Statistical Office. Apostol Simovski. In an interview with MIA, he expressed regret that the 2011 census was unsuccessful and that this, as an institution, will be considered a great burden.

– Since we celebrate 73 years of existence of the State Statistics in the Republic of Macedonia, with great regret, I can conclude that what made us most known in the country – conducting a census, in 2011 we were not able to do it. No matter what the reasons were, we would have this shame for a long time.

I hope that with the implementation of the new census we will be able to prove that, however, we are a personnel institution to do such a statistical survey and that at least to us was the reason for the non-implementation of the census, although as an institution we have great merit for what has not been done. We must admit this guilt. That guilt was because we allowed or opened across the gates to enter politics in the census. It’s something we can not afford, at least while I am here and I claim that this will not happen. There may be some attempts, but we will endure and not allow such a thing, but rather what it should be – statistical operation and nothing more, says Simovski in the interview.

In addition to the combined data collection, the census will also be that paper questionnaires will not be used, but the field census will be carried out using a laptop.

He points out that it is important that in such a way we receive the final data in a much shorter time, instead of waiting for a year and a half, to two years.