March the 16th, 2021 - The Croatian working population has been dealt an extremely heavy blow by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, especially given the fact that tourism is the country´s strongest economic branch and the vast majority of the Croatian working population works in a sector which is more or less closed down entirely at the moment.
The Croatian Government´s covid support which was sent out to employers and business owners in order to preserve jobs and prevent as many layoffs as possible has been utilised, but whether or not that will continue to be enough with no end in sight is becoming more and more of a burning question.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jadranka Dozan writes, although the total number of employees at the beginning of this year was lower than it was one year ago, in January, as well as in December, there was an increase in employment. Compared to the last quarter of last year, in the first month of this year saw an increase of 0.9 percent, with employers still receiving subsidies for preserving jobs for a significant number of employees in activities affected by the coronavirus crisis.
As such, back at the end of 2020, such economic measures covered 10.3 percent of the total number of the Croatian working population who are employed by a business entity, while in November, this percentage stood at 9.8 percent, and for example during the summer months (when the epidemiological picture was significantly better) it stood at about four percent.
At the same time, in the review of current labour market developments in the Croatian National Bank´s latest bulletin, it has been pointed out that the number of unemployed persons at the beginning of 2021 continued to decrease at an accelerated rate compared to the end of 2020 due to increased outflows from the Croatian Employment Service.
Despite this, the number of unemployed people across Croatia back in January was 25 thousand higher people than it was back during the same month last year. The administrative unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent of the workforce in January, after standing at 8.9 percent back in December. Last January, that same rate was at 7.1 percent.
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