ZAGREB, February 1, 2019 - Croatia's labour market is recovering unevenly by region but the number of the jobless is decreasing faster than the number of people with jobs is increasing, which is a reflection of emigration and demographic trends, according to a Chamber of Commerce (HGK) labour market analysis.

The jobless are more inclined towards emigration, and lower birth-rates result in smaller pressure on the employment office and this impacts the population, which is decreasing in nearly every county, the analysis shows.

As with other macroeconomic indicators, the labour market is different when broken down by region, as are the speed and duration of recovery after the economic crisis which lasted several years in every county, the HGK says.

The year 2017 saw a labour market recovery both at national and county levels. That year 11 counties recorded lower unemployment than in 2008, the year before the crisis.

Although in 20 counties there were fewer jobless than in 2008, only four counties recorded a simultaneous rise in the number of persons employed. This means that the decrease of unemployment was faster than the growth of employment, which was related to demographic and emigration trends, the HGK says.

Favourable trends in unemployment began sooner than in employment, so the continuous decrease of unemployment began in most counties four years ago and every county recorded a decrease over the past three years.

Bjelovar-Bilogora, Dubrovnik-Neretva, Osijek-Baranja and Lika-Senj were the counties in which recovery began in 2015. In 2017, annual drops in unemployment exceeded 20% in ten counties, the largest were recorded in the counties of Krapina-Zagorje (-28.6%), Varaždin (-28.3%) and Koprivnica-Križevci (-27.6%).

Those three counties recorded the largest unemployment drops in the past three years as well, above 50%. The slowest decreases were recorded in the counties of Lika-Senj (-28.1%), Dubrovnik-Neretva (-28.7%) and Šibenik-Knin (-29.4%). Dubrovnik-Neretva was the only county which had more jobless in 2017 than in 2008.

In 2017, 11 counties had lower unemployment rates than in 2008, with Karlovac and Zadar counties recording the biggest differences.

More news on the emigration from Croatia can be found in the Politics section.

ZAGREB, January 23, 2019 - The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) on Wednesday released a migration report for 2016 and 2017, showing that 110,526 Croatian emigrants had immigrated into the country in those two years.

A total of 57,476 Croatian nationals settled in Germany in 2016 and 53,050 in 2017. It was the first time since 2006 that the number of Croatian immigrants into Germany had decreased from the previous year.

In 2006, 8,543 Croatian nationals took up residence in Germany and their number has been increasing since. Particular increases were recorded in 2013, when Croatia joined the European Union, when the number of newly-arrived Croatian immigrants was 25,200, and in 2015, when Germany lifted restrictions on access to its labour market for Croatian workers, when 57,412 Croatian immigrants settled in Germany.

Between Croatia's EU entry in July 2013 and the end of 2017, a total of 189,633 Croatian nationals emigrated to Germany. Statistics for 2018 are not available yet.

The number of Croatian nationals who have been granted German citizenship has also increased sharply since Croatia joined the EU. This can be explained by the fact that Germany allows dual citizenship for EU citizens.

In 2017, a total of 2,896 Croatian nationals were granted German citizenship and all of them retained their Croatian citizenship.

Compared with the number of immigrants from other EU member states, Croatians were the fourth largest immigrant group in Germany in 2017, after Romanians, Poles and Bulgarians.

More news on the Croatian diaspora can be found in the special section.

Croatia has experienced a demographic catastrophe but, although the Croatian emigration wave will continue, the intensity of emigration is already becoming weaker. Far more people than previously thought have left the country since it has entered the EU, and the average age of new Croatian emigrants is considerably lower than in previous waves, according to the latest analysis published by the Institute for Public Finances, reports Jutarnji List on December 18, 2018.

A group of experts - Ivana Draženović, Marina Kunovac and Dominik Pripužić - analysed and compared Croatian and foreign data on the latest Croatian emigration wave, which started after Croatia become a member of the EU, and concluded that the real number of emigrants could be 2.6 times higher than the official statistics.

While official Croatian statistics for the period from 2013 to 2016 reports 102,000 emigrants, foreign sources say that the number of emigrants was significantly higher and reached 230,000 Croats. Majority of Croats moved to Germany, more than 71 per cent, as well as to Austria and Ireland, a country which practically did not even appear on the list of countries to which Croatians were moving until just a few years ago.

Apart from freedom of movement within the EU, the main reasons for emigration are the perception of emigrants about better living conditions in other EU member states, as well as a higher degree of economic development.

Although Croatia is not the only one among members of the European Union in having high emigration rates, it is worrying that many say they will never return and have moved abroad with their families. Less developed parts of the country are being emptied, while emigration from the more developed parts of Croatia is less pronounced.

Compared to the previous waves of emigration, the average age of new Croatian emigrants has decreased considerably. While in the period from 2001 to 2013, the average Croatian emigrant was 41.5 years old, in 2016 the average age was 33.6, according to the analysis.

“The phenomenon of emigration is likely to have a strong impact on the Croatian economy in the medium term,” warned the authors of the study.

Nonetheless, Ivan Čipin, a demographer from the Zagreb School of Economics, believes the picture is not so bleak. He claims that the main emigration wave from Croatia is already behind us. People will still move from the country, but it will not be as intensive as the previous years, said Čipin, who does not expect emigration from Croatia to accelerate in the upcoming period, assuming no major economic shocks. However, he warned that the opening of the Austrian labour market for Croatian citizens in 2020 could absorb another part of the Croatian labour force.

One of the reasons why emigration should not accelerate over the next few years is the lack of workers in Croatia, which is why wages are increasing. Moreover, the entire sectors of the Croatian economy cannot find enough workers and are increasingly dependent on foreign workers, despite the number of nearly 148,000 unemployed persons registered at the Croatian Employment Service.

No wonder that the Ministry of Labour and Pension System foresees bringing in more than 63,000 workers from abroad next year. That is the record number of foreign workers, which is higher than, for example, the total population of Pula.

The planned import of foreign workers has met with the resistance from the trade unions. “We are not xenophobes, but we do not see the logic that so many citizens are leaving Croatia in search of a better life, while we import the workforce from abroad. The government even wants to import workers for jobs which can be done by unemployed people from Croatia,” said Krešimir Sever, president of the Independent Croatian Trade Unions (NHS).

On the other hand, employers warn that without foreign workers they will not be able to develop their business further. In addition to the tourism and hospitality industry, the lack of workers can be felt in the construction industry as well as in many other sectors. Croatia is thus faced with a twofold challenge: on the one hand, its workers are moving to other countries, mostly to more developed EU member states, while on the other hand, workers have to be imported from abroad.

More news on the Croatian emigration wave can be found in our Politics section.

Translated from Jutarnji List (reported by Adriano Milovan).

ZAGREB, December 8, 2018 - Croatia could be left without 800,000 inhabitants by 2050, and its economy will need a million new workers during that period, the conference "Migration and Identity: Culture, Economy, State" has been told in Zagreb, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) said on Friday. Therefore, immigration is key for the Croatian economic development.

Between criticisms about the price of labour being driven down on the one hand and the preservation of cultural identity on the other, Croatia must adopt smart immigration policies and overcome its prejudices in order to survive, the conference heard.

"The Croatian economy does not stand a chance without immigration, because the emigration of people is a much bigger economic loss than their remittances could ever compensate for," Davorko Vidović, adviser to the HGK president on labour policy and employment, said at a panel on migration and the labour market.

Krešimir Ivanda of the Zagreb School of Economics presented the Croatian labour market from the point of view of immigrants, citing structural problems such as a disproportion between labour market needs and education, very late employment and early retirement, and emigration.

"A remarkable shortage of labour due to negative demographic trends is yet to be expected. According to projections for 2051, counties will lose 30 percent of working-age population on average per year, if the labour activity rate remains at its present level. Although we are a country of emigration, we have also always been a country of immigration. Some sectors, such as construction, tourism and the manufacturing industry, have depended on immigrant labour for the last decade or so," Ivanda said.

"Immigrants behave like local people with regard to economic activity, which is not good, because their activity should be much higher," he added.

Željko Bogdan of the Zagreb School of Economics said that the Croatian diaspora could help the Croatian economy with their remittances because they have a positive impact on domestic demand and growth. He, however, added that the inflow of foreign currency could adversely affect the price competitiveness of exports.

His colleague Antea Barišić said that remittances have a countercyclical effect. Citing World Bank data, she said that remittances accounted for 4.5 percent of GDP in 2017. She noted that these were only remittances made via current accounts, while their actual amount was believed to be between 30 and 50 percent higher.

"Emigration has a social and political effect. According to the neoclassical model, the winners are workers in the country of emigration and capitalists in the country of immigration," Barišić said, adding that as a result of emigration GDP declines generally but per-capita GDP rises.

For more on the Croatia’s emigration crisis, click here.

He was pulling a Mercedes on the main square of Osijek, where Ante Starčević's statue is located. He stopped at the monument, turned to him and, since he did not receive an answer, pulled Mercedes to the other side of the square. That was a farewell performance, title “My dad is the best in the world”, by multimedia artist Siniša Labrović recently in the center of Osijek, reports Večernji List on November 23, 2018.

“I asked him why he is alone and where are his children, do they call him from Dublin and Munich, do they send money, why he is silent, I asked him whether he felt shameful or guilty. I know he was against monuments and public honors. I asked him what I should tell his children if I met them around the world. ‘The Father of the Nation’ remained silent, stiff, alone and important. The performance did not look at the real character and work of Ante Starčević, who deserves respect, but at his monument in a society which he would consider a betrayal of ideals for which he once fought,” explained Labrović.

Labrović recently left Croatia and moved to Berlin, like so many other Croatians, young and old. The reasons are private and professional. “As a professor of Croatian language, I have not been able to get a permanent job in a school for ten years, after I was told by the Church that I would never get a job since in 2000 I restored a damaged monument to the partisans in Sinj. Also, earlier this year, I received an offer from the Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb, which is officially our main contemporary art institution, that I could create a performance for 500 kuna gross, both the fee and the production costs. Also, the few institutions that remained ‘normal’ are slowly being occupied by clerofascists. So we finally had to hear the message they have been whispering to us all the time – go to hell,” he explained

He moved to Berlin only recently, so he still does not know how the German culture will react to his performances. For now, he says, he is “a foreign worker in Croatia which is a thousand-year-old European country.” In November, he took part in two exhibitions in Rijeka, and he has several other projects planned.

Asked if he would be more appreciated in the homeland now that he is living abroad, he said he was not sure. “My plans are vast, but the future is opaque, so we will see. As for the appreciation in the homeland, it is likely that nothing will change.” He does expect that he will live better in Germany, given that many people are moving there and few are returning. “What the statistics mean for me, I will find out. Maybe I will be an exception,” he added.

Siniša Labrović was in the focus of the media this May when he started collecting signatures for a referendum that would ban the persecution of pedophile priests. Of course, it was just another of his performances, but surprisingly there were people who thought he was serious and who even signed the petition, claiming that priests should never be prosecuted, even if they are pedophiles.

For more on art in Croatia, click here.

 Mass emigration from Croatia has become a crisis. According to the official data of the Central Bureau of Statistics, from 2013 until the end of 2017, about 150,000 citizens left Croatia. However, some regions have seen an increase in the number of inhabitants, such as Istria and Zagreb, while in some the depopulation trend is much less severe than in others, reports Gradonačelnik.hr on November 21, 2018.

The latest information on population trends in towns reveals that some towns have seen a trend of drawing residents from other Croatian towns and abroad. This is due to the economic development and jobs which have been created there, mainly thanks to tourism in the coastal areas. As many as nine out of ten towns with the largest number of new residents are located on the coast, with the only exception being Samobor near Zagreb.

The town which has attracted most residents in the past six years – as many as 1,545 people moved there from 2011 to 2017 – is Dubrovnik, which just confirms its title as the best town in Croatia which it recently also won.

The second best is Kaštela near Split, whose population increased by 1,345, followed by Solin, also near Split, with 1,299 more inhabitants. The fourth best is Vodice near Šibenik (612 more citizens), followed by Umag in Istria (562). Among the top ten are also Krk, Poreč, Novalja, Supetar and, at the tenth position, the only town from inland Croatia, Samobor.

Dubrovnik Mayor Mato Frankovic says these are very encouraging numbers. Kaštela Mayor Denis Ivanović points out that the reason for such good results of his town is the fact that it is located near Split. They also introduced new demographic measures to keep young people living there.

Samobor is the only town from inland Croatia among the top ten towns by the number of newcomers. “Samobor is the only larger town without a local income tax, which encourages the arrival of new inhabitants and families who can find here everything they need for a peaceful, fulfilled life,” says Mayor Krešo Beljak.

Novalja is ranked eighth by the number of newcomers (396), but this figure makes it the second-best town in Croatia by the percentage, immediately behind Vis. The population of Novalja has increased by 10.8% since 2011. Mayor Ante Dabo says that the trend of people moving to Novalja was first seen 20 years ago. He is proud that most new inhabitants are well integrated into the local community, with many of them having their families in Novalja and their children feeling the sense of belonging to the local area.

After Vis and Novalja, the list of top ten towns by percentage includes many other smaller towns on the coast: Supetar, Krk, Nin, Stari Grad, Novigrad, Vodice, Hvar and Komiža.

For more on Croatia’s demographic crisis and the mass emigration from Croatia, click here.

Croatian employers are not the only ones who are desperately looking for Croatian workers. There are more and more foreign businesses coming to Croatia in search of possible employees. One of them is the well-known car factory Škoda from the Czech Republic, reports Radio Mrežnica on November 20, 2018.

Škoda is looking for workers, and this week the company decided to focus on Croatia. In four towns, Osijek, Sisak, Karlovac and Zagreb, representatives of the company will meet and talk with interested Croatian workers who are thinking about possibly moving to this Central European country, which is in economic terms far more developed in Croatia. While during the “dark days of socialism” then Yugoslavia seemed like a heaven to other Central and Eastern European countries, in the last 30 years everything changed. Now, Croats and citizens of other former Yugoslav republics are looking with envy at the living standards in countries such as Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

The ad that the Czech company published over the local Radio Mrežnica draw a huge amount of interest from listeners and the Czech representatives in Croatia were happy to provide more details. “ManpowerGroup" Czech Republic is looking for potential employees for Škoda Auto, in the town of Mlada Boleslav. Potential employees can earn up to 1,000 euro, in addition to accommodation and travel costs, which will be covered separately. They will also have a coordinator during their stay in the Czech Republic. ManpowerGroup will take care of them,” said the company representatives.

The interviews about possible employment at Škoda will take place in Osijek on Tuesday, in Sisak on Wednesday, in Karlovac on Thursday, and in Zagreb on Friday.

Škoda Auto, better known only as Škoda, is a Czech car manufacturer which was founded in 1895 as Laurin&Klement. It is located in the town of Mlada Boleslav.

According to the latest numbers, Croatia's population is significantly decreasing, with a trend of fewer births and more deaths, and there has never been a greater wave of emigration. Compared to 2008 when the population amounted to 4.3 million, ten years later, at the end of 2017, that number had decreased by 204,300 people and Croatia's population then was 4.1 million.

Since Croatia joined the EU in 2013, the number of immigrants has varied between 10,400 in 2013 and 15,600 in 2017. However, the number of people emigrating has increased noticeably more. Even though there was a growing trend in the period between 2011 and 2013, that number has increased significantly since accession.

In 2014, the number of emigrants was 20,900 which was an increase of 36.7% compared to 2013. In mid-2015, most EU member states lifted restrictions on Croatian workers and the number of emigrants increased by almost 10,000 that year. In 2016, that number continued to grow and in 2017 was a record high of 47,400, most of them emigrating to Germany.

For more on the emigration situation in Croatia, click here.

Just due to low birth rates, Croatia lost almost 12,000 inhabitants in the first eight months of this year.

Among foreigners working in Germany, Croatians are in the sixth position with regards to the amount of money sent to the homeland.

Ingenuity when it comes to avoiding paying taxes is endless.