ZAGREB, 11 May 2022 - At the end of April, 118,922 job-seekers were registered with the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ), a drop of 5.3% on the month and of 20% on the year.

April was the third consecutive month to see a monthly decline in the number of job-seekers, and compared to March, there were 6,682 fewer jobless persons.

Daily HZZ data show that due to the influence of seasonal trends and the needs of the tourism sector, the decline in the number of job-seekers will continue into May as well.

Currently, there are 114,163 job-seekers, 4,759 fewer than at the end of April. The HZZ currently offers 23,024 vacancies.

Year-on-year, the number of registered job-seekers is down by 29,822.

In April, 21,994 persons or 18.5% of the unemployed used unemployment benefits. The number of beneficiaries was down from April 2021 by 16.4%, with 4,315 fewer persons using unemployment benefits.

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ZAGREB, 29 April (2022) - In 2021 Croatia was among EU countries with the lowest level of employment, below the European average, a report by the Eurostat statistical office indicates.

In 2021, the share of employed people in the EU population was 73.1%, corresponding to 189.7 million people, up 1.4 percentage points from 2020, the first pandemic year, Eurostat said.

This was a higher rate than for the pre-pandemic year 2019, when 72.7% of the population was employed.

The employment rate in the eurozone in 2021 was 72.5%, the same as in 2019. In 2020 it was 71.2%.

Croatia with one of lowest employment rates

The highest level of employment in 2021 was registered in the Netherlands, Sweden and the Czech Republic, which had employment rates of 81.7%, 80.8% and 80% respectively.

Employment rates of below 70% were registered in Croatia, Spain, Romania, Italy and Greece.

Greece and Italy had the lowest employment rates, of 62.6% and 62.7% of the working-age population employed. 

Croatia's employment rate was 68.2%. In 2020 it was 66.9% and in 2019 it was 66.7%.

Spain had an employment rate of 67.7% in 2021.

The gap is decreasing

The majority of EU member states (16) in 2021 achieved or surpassed their 2019 employment rates, with Poland reporting the best result (+3.1 pp).

It was followed by Romania (+2 pp), and Greece and Malta (+1.8 pp each).

Croatia's employment rate increased by 1.5 percentage points compared with 2019.

Latvia is lagging behind its 2019 employment rate the most (-2.0 pp).

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ZAGREB, 23 Aug 2021 - In Croatia, the list of top ten cities in terms of the number of employees per 1,000 inhabitants include Varaždin, Čakovec, Zabok, Prelog, Sveta Nedelja, Koprivnica, Krk, Poreč, Dubrovnik, and Vinkovci, according to the data released by the national statistical office (DZS) on Monday.

The information about this ranking of the top 10 cities was released by the local authorities in Vinkovci that boasted that this eastern Croatian city made the top ten in terms of the number of workers per 1,000 inhabitants.

The list is topped by the northern city of Varaždin (630 employees per 1,000) and is followed by another two northern cities, Čakovec  (571) and Zabok (525).

Vinkovci has 401 employees per 1,000 residents, which ranks it in 10th place.

The ranking does not include the capital city of Zagreb or any of the other three biggest cities: Split, Osijek, and Rijeka.

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ZAGREB, 20 Aug, 2021 - In July 2021, there were 1.59 million persons in employment in Croatia, which is 1.5% more than in June 2021 and 2.3% more than in July 2020, while the registered unemployment rate this July slightly went down, the national statistical office (DZS) reported on Friday.

According to the DZS, the number of jobless people in January-July 2021 dropped by 0.2% on the year.

The number of the jobless registered with the Croatian Employment Service at the end of July 2021 was 126,006, down 0.2% on the month and 16.8% on the year, with the registered unemployment rate set at 7.4%.

A total of 1.35 million people were employed in legal entities, which is 1.3% more month on month and an increase of 2% on the year.

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ZAGREB, 8 July 2021 - Labour and Pension System Minister Josip Aladrović said on Thursday that Croatia had 55,000 employed persons more than last year and 4,000 more than in 2019, which was the year with the highest total number of employed persons since 2008, that is the last economic crisis.

We have slightly over 120,000 unemployed persons on the labor market, the minister said in parliament presenting a legal solution according to which family pension beneficiaries would have the right to work part-time and receive the full amount of pension.

Citing data from the Croatian Pension Insurance Insitute (HZMO), he said that there had been 216,000 family pension beneficiaries in June, mostly widows and widowers, and their pension had been HRK 2,094 on average, which is lower than the average pension.

At the risk of poverty

In 27% of cases, the surviving spouse is at risk of poverty, the minister stressed, explaining that amendments to the Pension Insurance Act seek to reduce the risk of poverty for pensioners, as well as fill gaps in the labor market.

Nada Murganić (HDZ) welcomed the amendments, recalling that family pension beneficiaries often left their jobs to take care of family members or look after the children. This will enable them to return to the world of work, she said.

Although MPs support the government's proposal that family pension beneficiaries be allowed to work and receive a pension, some of them fear that this could harm the unemployed, and some warn that this will not bring much momentum to the labor market.

Labour shortage, especially shortage of skilled workers, is one of the challenges Croatia is facing, and one of the ways to overcome it is to activate everyone who wants to work and has a specific knowledge, the minister told Anita Pocrnić Radošević (HDZ).

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ZAGREB, 21 May 2021 - At the end of April 2021, there were 1.53 million persons in employment in Croatia, up 0.6% on the month but down 1.2% on the year, while registered unemployment dipped 0.4 percentage points on the month, falling below 9% for the first time in six months, according to the national statistical office.

At the end of April 2021, 148,744 persons were registered with the Croatian Employment Service, down 4.4% on the month and 6.6% on the year. The registered unemployment rate for April was 8.9%, the lowest since September 2020.

Raiffeisen Bank analysts say that is a direct consequence of the decrease in the number of persons registered as jobless and the simultaneous increase in the active population (1,675,699).

The expected recovery of economic activity will have a limited positive effect on employment indicators given that the government mitigated with a set of measures the unfavourable trends on the labour market during the strong economic downturn last year and at the beginning of this year, the analysts say.

Therefore we expect a mild drop in registered unemployment to below 9% this year, while the survey unemployment rate could drop to 7%, they add.

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As Frenki Lausic/Novac writes on the 10th of August, 2019, the number of insured persons exceeded 1.6 million at the end of July and reached the figure of 1,600,405, according to data from the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute. This means that compared to pre-recession July 2008, when the figure stood at 1.639 million, there are only 39,000 insured persons less.

Thus, the total number of insured persons at HZMO increased by 0.4 percent on a monthly basis and 2.4 percent on an annual basis, meaning that compared to July 2018, the number of insured persons increased by 37 thousand.

The number of insured persons at HZMO has in recent years almost taken the lead in determining the number of employees in Croatia, although two other methods are officially used, and both of them show employment growth.

According to data from the Croatian Central Bureau of Statistics, according to the so-called “administrative method” used by the Croatian Tax Administration, the number of employees in June stood at 1,451,541 and in June 2018, it stood at 1,432,701, which means that in June 2019, the number of employees increased by 19 thousand at the annual level.

However, due to changes in the method, it isn't possible to compare 2008 and 2019 according to the above-mentioned statistics. According to a third method, a labour force survey, also conducted by the CBS, which is also the official statistical method recognised by the European Union, ie the Eurostat umbrella statistical authority, the number of employees is increasing.

According to the labour force survey, for the first quarter of this year, the number of employees on Croatian territory stood at 1.66 million, while in the same quarter of 2018, it was 1.61 million. According to this method, the number of employees increased by 50 thousand. Still, there remains a big difference in the recording of employment growth between the CBS, HZMO and the labour force survey.

For example, in June this year, the number of HZMO insured persons increased by 40 thousand and the number of employees under the CBS administrative method increased by 19 thousand. This is partly explained by the fact that one who is unemployed can pay for his/her own pension, or simply work abroad.

Thus, at the end of June, of 1.59 million HZMO policyholders, 1.36 million were employed by legal entities, 122,193 were employed by natural persons, 66,933 were employed in an obrt (craft), 19,628 were insured farmers, 19,314 were insured in independent professional activities, 88 of them were insured persons employed by international organisations abroad and Croatian nationals employed on the territory of the Republic of Croatia with employers based abroad, while 4715 had extended insurance.

Croatia reached the level of gross domestic product from 2008 this year, and in all likelihood, it will reach the same level of policyholders as back in 2008. This, despite the differences compared to the dynamics of growth provided by the CBS administrative method, nevertheless speaks of a positive dynamic in the the labour market, especially when looking at the labour force survey, but it would be good for CBS and HZMO to finally do something about too much "discrepancy" when it comes to their respective numbers and methods.

RBA analysts, who analyzed HZMO data for July this year, noted that, despite seasonal fluctuations in the labor market, positive annual rates of growth in the number of policyholders have been present since the second quarter of 2015, reflecting the recovery in economic activity and, consequently, the strengthening of labor demand. The growth of insured persons on a monthly basis of 6822 persons is a consequence, they note, of growth in many industries.

However, they emphasise that the noticeable and expected growth in the number of insured persons in the provision of accommodation and food preparation and services is a mere consequence of seasonal employment and an increasing orientation towards tourism-related activities.

In these sectors, the monthly growth of insured persons amounted to 4343 or 3.4 percent, while, on the other hand, the education sector (as it has in previous years) recorded a sharp decrease in the number of insured persons in July, totaling 2656 or 2.4 percent less, but their numbers are likely to increase in September with the turning of a new academic year.

At the annual level, the largest contribution to the growth of insured persons came from the construction industry, in which the total number of insured persons in July amounted to 114,438 persons, which marks 7.5 percent growth on an annual basis.

“In the first seven months of 2019, the average number of insured persons amounted to 1.549 million, which is 2.3 percent or 34,487 more than in the same period in 2018. The largest contribution to the growth of the average number of insured persons in the first seven months came from the construction industry whose share in the total of insured persons is 7.2 percent. With an average annual growth of 7.3 percent in the January-July period, a relatively high contribution to the overall increase of 22 percent is in line with present positive trends in construction,'' RBA's analysts said.

The largest number of employees, ie insured persons, are still in the manufacturing industry (16 percent, or 248,324), but after a slowdown in 2018, the annual number of policyholders since January 2019 has recorded a decrease in the number of policyholders annually in this industry (manufacturing participates with 80 percent in the overall Croatian industry).

Moreover, as the analysts point out, there is also a slight acceleration in an unfavourable trend, and in July the fall in the number of policyholders in the manufacturing industry was one percent per year. Thus, on average, 2.8 percent fewer persons were insured in manufacturing in the first seven months of 2019 compared to the same period last year.

"This is very likely due to the fall in manufacturing output in 2018 and its modest growth in 2019. The growth in the number of policyholders will continue in the coming months, so according to this indicator, employment growth could amount to about two percent," the RBA analysts concluded.

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