ZAGREB, 12 July 2022 - Without new residents and bringing in workers from abroad, Croatia cannot maintain a welfare state, it was said on Tuesday at a conference - "How to boost economic development with labor policies and continuous investment in education" - at the Lavoslav Ružička Polytechnic in Vukovar.
The director-general of the Croatian Employers' Association (HUP) Damir Zorić assessed that a large part of today's unemployed people in Croatia fall into the category of hard-to-employ and those whom the labour market can hardly count on.
"The second part of the problem is young people leaving the country and the third problem is trying to import labour. Last year, Croatia issued about 100,000 work permits to foreigners, and this year we already reached that number around the middle of the year," Zorić said, adding that the majority of foreigners coming to work in Croatia are from neighbouring countries, but even that "pool" has already been somewhat exhausted.
According to Zorić, Croatia is now turning more and more to India, Romania, and Ukraine, where mostly poorer educated workers are coming from.
"Unfortunately, we are not yet attractive enough for highly educated personnel, because with our salaries we can hardly meet their demands", he said, adding that it is necessary to make labour costs in Croatia cheaper so that workers earn more while reducing obligations to the state.
State Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Pension System Ivan Vidiš considered that the ministry's participation was important in the creation of a portal for advanced monitoring of the labour market and education. It is a research tool that brings together all data on the labour market in one place, from data on employment and unemployment in the sector to data on secondary and higher education for occupations in that sector, as well as data on the workforce and employers' needs.
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