December 10, 2018 — Croatia still hasn’t found a strategy to address its rapidly shrinking workforce, according to Poslovni Dnevnik. The effect on the economy — from investment to exports — will be hard to predict.

In the following year, the Croatian economy will lose more than 50,000 workers, according to a recent poll conducted by members of the Croatian Chamber of Economy.

At least as many people left the country last year, about half of 100,000 who left Croatia since the country joined the European Union.

The figures are probably an underestimation based on unreliable data — few people declare they’re leaving Croatia for good or where they’re headed.

Nonetheless, Croatia still has no strategy of addressing the rapidly falling labor shortage, aside from stopping emigration in the next few years.

All this will have a significant impact on the slowdown in economic activity in the country, according to participants of the International Migration Conference.

"While the situation is alarming, we see no serious attempts to address the many causes and remedies of the consequences of the staff crisis and all that it carries,” said Davorko Vidovic, Labor Policy Advisor and Employment at the Chamber of Economy.

He added structural problems such as a low level of lifelong learning to late entry and early exit from the workforce create a labor vacuum then exacerbate by emigration.

The number or profile of people leaving Croatia remains largely unknown. Some data suggests it is mainly working-age adults who have finished university.

Krešimir Ivanda, Ph.D. at the Department of Demography of the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb, said the country’s options are limited.

Some demographic measures — encouraging remaining Croats to stay and procreate — can only deliver results after at least 25 years. Another option — importing workers — is increasingly encouraged by employers. The short-term fix comes at a cost, though.

Importing workers also brings its headaches. The professor’s analysis suggests immigrant workers succumb to many of the same structural problems that befall Croatia’s workforce.

The emigration and labor shortage could perhaps lead salaries in Croatia to grow, especially in the sectors where workers are most missing. But it’s a double-edged sword.

Less developed areas of the country will not be able to keep pace with growth, resulting in regional wealth disparities within the country.

Yet emigration isn’t a full-blown negative trend.

The diaspora offers a significant source of money through family and friends or through direct investment. Yet this recent wave of emigration doesn’t match previous waves, when breadwinners left their families and sent money back home. Today, whole families pack up.

"If we continue at this pace of emigration and declining work, Zagreb as one of the strongest economic centers in Croatia will lose one third of the active population by 2051, with 440,000 active citizens going to 309,000,” Ivanda said.

Follow TCN's coverage of Croatia's demographic crisis.

November 29, 2018 — A new group has joined the masses emigrating to Western Europe: Croatia's Roma, an oft-marginalized societal and economic underclass which has until now stayed put.

The most impoverished of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County’s Roma have started leaving Croatia, according to Novi List. About four thousand Roma lived in the area surrounding Rijeka until recently, but the number dropped drastically as the unemployed and poorest families left for Germany.

Croatia overall is enduring a mass exodus as young, well-educated citizens leave to the tune of nearly 200 a day by some estimates.

The last two years saw the number of families surviving on some part of Croatia’s social safety net fall by over 100 in the broader Rijeka area.

“Some left three years ago; some two years ago, others yesterday. They left for bread, for a better life,” Sadik Krasnić, president of the Council of the Roma National Minorities of the Primorsko-Goranska County, told Novi List. “More people would have left, but we managed to employ them on time, mostly in Sanitation.” Krasnić know of about 15 to 20 families who have left recently, each with three children or more.

The worst-hit areas appear to be Rujevica and Škurnjske Drage. The town of Delnica may also see a mass exodus. There, many families lack employment or any connection to basic municipal services such as water or electricity. Some, according to Krasnić, still live in tents.

Roma have historically been ostracized within Croatia and often unable to access basic municipal services and social welfare benefits granted other citizens. A 2015 UN Human Rights Committee report claims Roma effectively became stateless after the breakup of Yugoslavia and “face difficulties in meeting the requirements for obtaining Croatian citizenship because they often lack personal identity documents."

Roma moved into the Rijeka region, the northwestern corner of Croatia next to the Istrian Peninsula, in the 1950s. The first migrants made their living shining shoes under the clock at the city’s center. Their descendants, including Krasnić, still live there — of have until they started moving out.

A cadre of local politicians have helped Rijeka’s Roma find jobs, get electricity, legalize homes, and build playgrounds for children, according to Krasnić.

“We desperately want our kids to go to school, finish their educations so they can find their callings,” Krasnić said. “We don’t want to live in isolation.”

Those who emmigrated found jobs, apartments, schools for their children, Krasnić added. The better-off members return during the summers to fix the homes they left behind, checking odds and ends such as electric and water connections — still in the works at the time they left.

“They’ll come back some day, I know their souls,” Krasnić added.

Check out our other stories on Croatia’s ongoing demographic problems.

An unusual but excellent agreement on cooperation signed between one Croatian university and Carlsberg Croatia is set to bring students closer to their potential employers, and connect theory and practice to help keep young people in Koprivnica.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 16th of November, 2018, on Wednesday, November the 14th, 2018, a press conference was held at the North University at the University Centre in Koprivnica, where the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Koprivnica educational facility and no less than Carlsberg Croatia was held. The press conference was attended by Helle M. Petersen, the president of Carlsberg Croatia's management board, dr. sc. Mario Tomiša, the vice president of the Koprivnica University Centre, associate professor. dr. sc. Vlado Tropša, the vice chancellor for teaching and student affairs, as well as other heads of study programs of the aforementioned University.

With signing the said cooperation agreement, a period begins in which students and the Koprivnica brewery (part of the Danish Carlsberg Group) are expected to find ways to work together. Student practices, the visiting of various experts from Carlsberg at the university, as well as connecting through other projects will be mutually beneficial.

Helle M. Petersen, CEO of Carlsberg Croatia, noted during the introductory part of the conference: "The collaboration of the economy and educational institutions is the only safe way for the whole society to progress. Koprivnica is a wonderful place to live, with many advantages offered by its residents, and for young people to remain here we need to connect a professional perspective to it, too. At Carlsberg, we're proud that we've always been a learning organisation and have been developing our people, and that's why we want young people to recognise the benefits of working in an international environment, a company that deals with such a passionate and interesting thing, as is beer production.''

Assoc. prof. dr. sc. Mario Tomiša emphasised that this cooperation will strengthen the link between Koprivnica and international companies: "Koprivnica is a small town, and we who were born here have been living with Carlsberg since our youth, our family, friends and our associates work there, the Carlsberg connection is a long-standing and powerful one, and North University wants this link to be deepened even further, to the satisfaction of all three sides.''

During the conference, Tomiša emphasised that the agreement encompasses cooperation on scientific research and professional projects, cooperation on teaching at the university in question, as well as in the development of knowledge, skills and competences of students.

"We're happy that Carlsberg Croatia has recognised the quality of our studies and has decided to support us in an effort to provide students with more through their studies. Lifelong education, programs which connect theory and practice, and connecting students with their potential employers; these are all areas in which the university has impressive results. This year, the university opened up a new undergraduate degree in Food Technology, and in the second and third year, we focus on beer production. Today, we have 27 study programs at the university, so we can cooperate with Carlsberg on a series of other directions such as economic and technical logistics, sustainable mobility and logistics, media design, business, and management,'' concluded Tomiša.

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Does the Zagreb-based Hendal agency's survey reveal anything new?

A lot can be said of the Croatian domestic economic situation, and even more can be said about the level of young people leaving the country in their droves in search of higher standards, more job security and a better wage in other European countries, with those further west like Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom among the most attractive of all.

Potential staff can't find employers, and potential employers can't find staff. It's a bit like Where's Waldo but with serious consequences. As the buses and planes continue to leave and the situation gets more and more pressing, it's difficult to know just how one can manage to get to the raw truth lying behind the sensational journalism, the shocking headlines and the apparently welcome trends of negativity.

The situation is a dire one, and it shows no immediate signs of recovery, or does it?

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 7th of November, 2018, the Hendal market research agency, based in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, explored the habits of young people for the very first time in the Republic of Croatia.

The Zagreb-based Hendal agency has been investigating the habits and attitudes of the country's 25-year-olds. The first such survey conducted by the research agency here in Croatia shows that as many as 56.8 percent of the respondents do work, 25.9 percent are in some sort of education, and just 16 percent of those contacted are unemployed or seeking a job.

58.7 percent of young people are currently working in some sort of profession, and 21.7 percent claim that they aren't working in what would be termed as a profession by their own choice. Those people are budding entrepreneurs, and explain that they're taking that route in particular because as many as 50 percent of them are seriously considering starting their own business, while only 16 percent of them say they're definitely going to leave Croatia.

Croatia's young people, according to Hendal's research, aren't interested in politics, although 48.8 percent of them confirm that they do always go to the polls to vote.

Hendal's research reveals that most of them spend their free time cooking more than going out, encouragingly, most do not smoke, and in a somewhat lighter survey, 47.5 percent of them would choose to take their phones with them should they end up on a desert island, with more than six hours a day spent using a phone spent by 42.6 percent of the respondents.

Today, young people up to 25 years of age, of which there are about 49,000, don't see property and real estate as a priority.

Only 28.4 percent of them are sure they'll marry, and children are eventually planned by 69.8 percent of young people in Croatia.

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Click here for the original article by Lucija Spiljak for Poslovni Dnevnik

Negative trends need to be taken care of and we need to change them quickly so that Croatian tourism will develop in the long term in line with the importance it has within the Croatian economy.

Oct 11, 2018 — The small island of Silba hopes to become a year-round home for many, instead of a seasonal destination for a few.

Is the plan cunning? Or crazy?

Oct. 1, 2018 — A local council discovered a simple way to boost its population: Spend more on children and young families.

Another rather poorly worded statement from the prime minister, to say the very least...

With endless stories about people packing up and leaving Croatia behind for more economically promising climes, just how green is the grass on the other side?