ZAGREB, 16 June, 2021 - Slower salary growth halted the growth of hourly labour costs in the EU in the first quarter of 2021, while in Croatia labour costs increased for the first time since the start of the pandemic, Eurostat data show on Wednesday.

In the first quarter of 2021, the hourly labour costs rose by 1.7% in the EU, compared with the same quarter of the previous year. In the fourth quarter of 2020, hourly labour costs increased by 3.2%.

The costs of hourly wages and salaries increased by 2.6%, after growing 3.8% in Q4 2020.

The costs of salaries increased the most in arts, entertainment and recreation (+8.3%), followed by accommodation and food service activities (+6.1%).

The costs of contributions at the start of this year went up 1%.

The highest increases in hourly labour costs in Q1 2021 were registered in Lithuania (+12%) and Slovenia (+11.1%), while the lowest were in Austria (+0.3%) and Belgium (+0.9%).

In Croatia, they went up 2.3%, for the first time since Q2 2020. In Q4 2020, they dropped 1.1%. The costs of hourly wages and salaries increased 2.3% after falling 0.2% at the end of last year. The costs of contributions went up 2.2%, after falling 6.4% at the end of 2020.

The largest decrease in hourly labour costs in Q1 2021 was registered in Malta (-2.6%), followed by Ireland (-2.5%).

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ZAGREB, 18 March, 2021 - In the fourth quarter of 2020, hourly labour costs rose in the EU and euro area at rates that were almost twice as high as in the previous quarter, while Croatia was again among the countries that recorded declines, a Eurostat report shows.

In the 27-member EU, hourly labour costs increased by 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. In the third quarter, they increased by 1.8%.

At the same time, hourly labour costs in the euro area were 3.0% higher than in the last quarter of 2019, following a 1.6% increase in the third quarter.

The higher labour costs reflected a rise in the costs of hourly wages and salaries, while the non-wage component moderated the growth in hourly labour costs, in particular due to the tax reliefs and subsidies granted by EU governments to support enterprises affected by the coronavirus crisis.

In the EU, the costs of hourly wages and salaries increased by +3.7% in Q4 2020, following a 2.4% rise in Q3. In the euro area, the costs of wages and salaries per hour worked grew by +3.5%, after a 2.2% increase in the third quarter.

In the EU, in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared with the same quarter of the previous year, the economic activities that recorded the highest increases in wage and salary costs were "Arts, entertainment and recreation" (+11.0%) and "Accommodation and food service activities" (+10.2%)

The non-wage component increased by 1.8% in the EU and by 1.5% in the euro area, following stagnation in the previous quarter.

The largest increases in hourly labour costs were recorded in Austria (+11.6%) and Bulgaria (+10.0%), while the lowest increases were observed in Hungary (+0.7%) and France (+0.3%).

Croatia, along with Ireland, Malta and Finland, had lower hourly labour costs in the fourth quarter of 2020 than in the same period in 2019. Ireland observed the largest decrease in hourly labour costs, of 4.8%.

in Croatia, hourly labour costs in Q4 2020 were 1.1% lower than in Q4 2019, while in Q3 they fell for the first time in four years, by 0.6%. In the fourth quarter, wage and salary costs fell by 0.2% and the non-wage component shrank by 6.3%, the largest decline since Q2 2016. In the third quarter, wage and salary costs rose by 0.3%, while the non-wage component fell by 5.8%.

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More than excellent news for the Croatian job market and the domestic economy as a whole as as many as 600 jobs are set to be opened in Zagreb County thanks to a huge investment.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of May, 2019, parts for the aviation giants Boeing and Airbus will be produced in the Republic of Croatia. The parts will be incorporated into the world's most famous aircraft and their engines, including names like Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, and Rolls-Royce. The news was announced on Wednesday by Večernji list, citing that the Austrian aeronautical company FACC is beginning to construct a production plant for the interior parts of planes in the business zone of Jakovlje in Zagreb County, close to the Croatian capital of Zagreb.

The investment is worth a massive 33 million euros and will open up 600 jobs. The land has already been purchased, the necessary permissions and the permit have been granted and the construction has begun. The plant should be completed by the end of 2020 and production at the plant will commence in 2021.

This great news has also been confirmed by the head of the aforementioned Austrian company Robert Machtlinger, who stated that FACC wants to grow and be quicker than the market and intends to work on strengthening the expertise of its employees. "Zagreb is offering us this because it has a highly qualified workforce," he added.

The company chose between different locations in Central and Eastern Europe and ultimately decided on Zagreb. The sale contract has already been signed, and the Austrian company has become the owner of the land in the Jakovlje business area, totalling 130 thousand square metres.

Vecernji list also revealed that a meeting will take place on Wednesday in Banski Dvori where the President of FACC AGI's management board and the president of AVIC Cabin Systems Co. Limited from China, a company which owns 55.5 percent of the Austrian company, will talk to Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Economy Minister Darko Horvat and State Secretary Zdenk Lucić about the project implementation and everything that goes into the planning and licensing phase.

The plan is that construction work on the plant will be completed by December 2020, and production will begin no later than April 2021, according to Dnevnik.

As a daughter company of the Chinese state-owned company Aviation Industry Corporation of China, one of the ten largest Chinese companies, FACC, based in Austria, is part of the global market and cooperates with world leaders in the aviation industry such as Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Rolls-Royce. FACC is otherwise a company with more than 3,400 employees from 38 countries which work in thirteen locations worldwide, Vecernji list writes.

They added that un the financial year 2018/2019, they earned 781.6 million euros in revenue, an increase of 4.5 percent compared to the previous financial year, and also the best result in the company's thirty-year history.

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As Vedran Marjanovic/Novac writes on the 27th of May, 2019, as of June the 1st this year, Switzerland will fully open up its labour market for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, while Croatian citizens will still have labour restrictions placed on them, and require a work permit in order to legally work within the country, which is not a member state of the European Union, according to a report from the Bulgarian State News Agency (BTA).

Referring to the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, BTA states that on the 15th of May, 2019, the Swiss Federal Council decided to open its labour market entirely for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, thus leaving Croatian citizens as the only EU citizens who need to continue to wait until further notice. The agency notes that Switzerland and the European Union have agreed on the free movement of workers, which is a core principle of access to the EU's single market, but the country has exercised its fundamental right to restrict access to its labour market for the citizens of selected EU member states.

Similar measures were once put in place by the United Kingdom and Malta, but both countries have since dropped their restrictions, allowing Croatian citizens full access to their labour markets and the ability to work freely without needing any sort of work permit, and the Croatian Government quickly ensured the same conditions for Maltese and British citizens in Croatia.

The decision on the limited access to the Swiss labour market for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens is due to expire at the end of May this year as Switzerland used the maximum ten year period to postpone the full and free flow of workers from Bulgaria and Romania into Switzerland. According to BTA's data, about 11,000 Bulgarians already work in Switzerland.

For Croatian freelance workers in Switzerland, the decisions of the Swiss Government will continue to be in place until at least 2021. The Croatian Ministry of Labour has since warned that Switzerland could restrict the access of Croatian citizens to its labour market until 2026.

According to the data of the Swiss Immigration Office, in February this year, 5832 Croatian workers obtained work permits in Switzerland, while the total number of Croatian citizens living in Switzerland stood at a far higher 28,583. The number of new work permits that Switzerland is willing to grant to Croatian citizens by 2021 is limited to a mere 2500.

Upon the initiative of Croatian MP in the European Parliament Željana Zovko (HDZ), back in March, the European Parliament called on Switzerland, by a special resolution, to lift its barriers on Croatian workers, which was obviously unsuccessful. The Swiss National Party (SNP) remains committed to continuing the restriction of access to the Swiss labour market for Croatian citizens.

One million and 400,000 workers from the European Union (of which Switzerland is not a member) currently work there, and another 320,000 from the EU come to work in Switzerland every day. On the other hand, 460,000 Swiss nationals are employed by one of the EU member states.

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Click here for the original article by Vedran Marjanovic for Novac/Jutarnji

The unemployment rate for young people up to 29 years of age is the highest among Croatia's domestic population, and the lowest among young people from third countries.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of April, 2019, the Republic of Croatia is among the countries of the EU with the best integrated immigrants from third countries, which can only be met with surprise by those people who do not know that these ''immigrants'' are actually mostly just Croats born in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by a few immigrants from Serbia, Germany, Slovenia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

According to the latest census, 584,947 (13.7 percent) of the population of Croatia were born abroad. The number of migrants are as follows: Serbia (9 percent), Germany (5.8 percent), Kosovo (3.5 percent), Slovenia (3.4 percent), Macedonia ( 1.7 percent). Immigrants to Croatia, predominantly from Bosnia and Herzegovina, are doing much better in terms of the employment rate of young people up to 29 years of age, meaning that they're significantly better integrated into the Croatian labour market than those born in Croatia and those from other EU countries.

This data were presented by sociologists Snježana Gregurević and Sonja Podgorelec, and social geographer Sanja Klempić Bogadi from the Institute for Migration and Ethnicity in the presentation "The Influence of Immigrant Groups on the Social Cohesion of the Receiving Society - the case of Croatia".

A large number of Croatian residents born in Bosnia and Herzegovina are the result of labour migration during the socialist period of Yugoslavia and immigration during the Bosnian war. Most immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina live in Zagreb (98,579), Split-Dalmatia County (36,864), Zagreb County (35,427), Brod- Posavina (29,537) and Osijek-Baranja County (28,051), these are the "entrance" Croatian counties, those closest to the border regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the exception of Dubrovnik-Neretva County, from which emigration towards Croatia was the most intensive,'' stated Klempić Bogadi.

By the year 2015, Croatia, along with Serbia, Germany and Austria, was the most common destination for immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, since 2016, the trend is for the Bosnian population to migrate to Germany and Austria, and the number of such persons in Croatia and Serbia is steadily decreasing.

"According to Eurostat's data, immigrants from third countries, predominantly immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, are better involved in the Croatian labour market than the domestic population and immigrants from other EU countries in terms of the employment rate of young people aged from 15 to 29. The employment rate of young people from third countries in Croatia is higher by 18 percent when compared to the employment of domestic youth,'' said Snježana Gregurović.

As stated, the unemployment rate for young people up to 29 years of age is highest among the domestic Croatian population, and is actually the lowest among young people from third countries.

"Because of their small share of the total population of Croatia, immigrants haven't endangered or undermined the country's social cohesion. Because of the modest share of the immigrant population in Croatia who do not have Croatian ethnic origin, and the large share of those who do have it, the integration challenges are not yet posing any sort of significant cost to the state, or a threat to the domestic population,'' says Podgorelec.

In Zagreb, the largest concentration of immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina live in Sesvete, where the research "Influence of immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina on the socio-demographic development of Croatian urban regions" was conducted on a sample of 301 people aged 18 and over born in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Most of them (93.4 percent) were ethnic Croats, ethnic Serbs made up 3.7 percent of them, Bosniaks made uo 2.3 percent, and 0.7 percent was made up of others. Otherwise, 85.2 percent of Croats born in Bosnia and Herzegovina and living in Croatia are actually Croats, 6.3 percent of them are actually Serbs, and just 6 percent are Bosniaks.

A third of respondents hold dual citizenship, (Croatian and Bosnia and Herzegovina). Almost half of them work, of which 68 percent are mostly in trade or the construction industry. 14.6 percent are unemployed, those who stay at home make up 6.6 percent, pensioners make up 29.2 percent, and students and pupils in education make up 2.7 percent. The largest number of immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina living in Sesvete have secondary education, and 6,3 percent have higher education.

"Most respondents feel very welcome in the local community, they have a strong sense of belonging to the Croatian society, and they vote in large numbers during elections in the Republic of Croatia, but are exceptionally poorly involved in any organisation and/or civil society. Given the fact that many of them also have Croatian citizenship and therefore they vote in the elections in the Republic of Croatia, many are significantly less interested in political developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which shows a high level of political integration,'' concluded Podgorelec, reports Večernji list.

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As Novac/Gradonacelnik.hr writes on the 29th of March, 2019, Ogulin has made a great many steps forward economically.

''Across all areas, the numbers are growing and visible progress has been made. We believe that our honest and committed work and the desire to contribute to the development of Ogulin in all fields has been recognised and that it's the only reason for our victory, and at the same time, the foundation on which we'll build our further activities and plans,'' said Mayor Domitrović for Gradonačelnik.hr who won a majority in the City Council three weeks ago.

Early elections held in Ogulin three weeks ago, where SDP won by a landslide, winning 9 out of 17 seats in the City Council, saw a somewhat impossible situation which had taken hold of the local area finally overcome. The citizens of Ogulin came out and gave their support, SDP's list won a majority and with its nine mandates at the constituent session of the City Council scheduled for April the 5th, it can independently form a government, declare what the budget will be, and proceed with the implementation of all of Ogulin's planned projects.

Only five SDP councilors entered during the recent local elections in the City Council, so the majority of nine councilors formed with three councilors from the now independent Željko Stipetić's list (former HSP AS) and one councilor of the DSS came to be. However, after the coalition collapsed at the end of last year, Mayor Domitrović remained without the support of the City Council, which is why the budget wasn't adopted for this year, so the government, according to what is set out by law, dissolved the City Council and announced early elections.

''We believe that our victory is the result of our work in the past year and a half, which our citizens have recognised. We took the reigns with a simple way of being that involves work, order and discipline, and the results we achieved were that people, having first given me their trust me a mayor in 2017, have now given that same trust to the party who had me run as a candidate, because in a year and half, we've shown that we can do much more and do it in a much better way than our predecessors. In all areas, the numbers are growing and visible progress has been made. We believe that our honest and committed work and our desire to contribute to the development of Ogulin in all fields has been recognised and that this is the only reason for our victory, and at the same time the foundation for our further activities and plans,'' said Mayor Dalibor Domitrović.

The figures speak volumes about what was done, how it was done, and the level of effort involved. Over the last year and a half in Ogulin, an impressive 250 new employment positions were opened, thanks to a large investment cycle that kick-started the economy.

Domitrović and his team succeeded in solving several property related legal problems that had been blocking investors and their cash, and because of which the new Ogulin entrepreneurial zone sadly became obsolete. The area is now fully completed and ready, and now Ogulin has requested an additional 47 hectares of land from the state, because the interest of potential investors certainly hasn't gone away.

"In the old and in the new entrepreneurial zone, investment projects worth 1.25 billion kuna exist, which, in addition to other projects, in the coming years, could turn Ogulin into a large construction site where more companies from the Ogulin area will have the opportunity to earn money,'' Deputy Mayor Danijel Vukelj said.

Since the beginning of their mandate, they have managed to launch two large projects that had been deadlocked for decades - the Ogulin flood defense system, that is, the construction of Ogulin's retention system, a project worth 180 million kuna and which is led by Hrvatske vode (Croatian water), and the construction of the Ogulin observatory project worth 250 million kuna, run by Hrvatske ceste (Croatian roads), which is dealing with major traffic problems that hinder the development of entrepreneurial zones and thus the local economy of Ogulin. Both projects will be funded by very welcome EU funds.

As far as Ogulin is concerned, or more specificially its administration, currently, projects worth 272 million kuna are in the works, for which EU funds have been contracted. Projects worth 80 million kuna have been either reported or are being prepared.

"We've started dealing with the issue of waste management, which has been neglected for many years now across Croatia and in the majority of cities and municipalities. We can do a lot of things in a very short time to meet the EU conditions that the Republic of Croatia has now accepted. The establishment of a waste management system will cost 40 million kuna. Most of this amount will be financed by EU funds, but the implementation itself, from sorting out the Sodol landfill, construction, the recycling yard, the equipment and vehicle procurement, as well as citizen education and other activities, will last several years,'' Vukelj explained.

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Click here for the original article by Gradonacelnik.hr on Novac/Jutarnji

As Darko Bicak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 27th of March, 2019, the president of the board of EY Croatia talks about the state of the country, the challenges and perspectives of the Croatian economy, and the need to promote successful stories, which they push forward through the Entrepreneur of the Year event.

Even though it has nominally existed for thirty years in the market economy, it's still necessary to properly promote entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs in the Republic of Croatia, and for this reason, the global consultancy company Ernst & Young (in Croatia, EYCroatia) is organising, for the fifth time in Croatia, the Entrepreneur of the Year project.

Why it's still necessary to promote entrepreneurship and what the general situation is with the prospects of the Croatian economy was discussed by Berislav Horvat, the president of the board of EY Croatia.

All analyses of the Croatian market show that the lack of workforce is the main challenge of Croatia's economic development. Do you see this as a short-term challenge that will, more or less, be resolved relatively quickly, or as a factor that will have more and more of an impact on the structure and development of the Croatian economy?

The labour shortage is definitely one of the major challenges facing the Croatian economy. The problem is no longer financing and a lack of capital, but just a lack of a workforce entirely. This problem will not be resolved that quickly and will represent a limiting factor for further business growth.

Although entrepreneurs and companies operating in Croatia mostly do have growth plans, the lack of a workforce could be a key obstacle. This applies to companies in various industries, from tourism and hospitality, construction and industrial production, to the IT sector.

Have other countries in ''New Europe'' encountered such challenges, and how did they solve them, or are Croatian specifics at play here, too?

Croatia isn't an exception here. Other European countries have been met with the same problems, where people were emigrating, but with growth and development, the demand for labour increased, so wages rose, which led to people returning. For us, the most important thing is to create a stable business environment that will enable entrepreneurs and companies to invest because that's a prerequisite for further employment.

On the side of the state, it's crucial to further reduce income tax and abolish the highest tax rate. This would increase the net salaries of employees, Croatia would become more attractive, and those who left Croatia would have a reason to return to it. I believe that wage growth in Croatia is a key factor that will affect the return of some of the people who have left.

New technologies, the so-called 4.0 industry, is increasingly affecting the global economy. Where is Croatia there?

We've noticed that in Croatia, companies are increasingly investing in digitisation. We, with a lot of companies, are working on a digital strategy to improve business or cost savings and this is definitely the direction in which companies need to develop. We hope that we'll soon be able to see the results of the announced state-level measures related to the digitisation of public administration, for example, the digitisation of the process of opening up companies.

How did 4.0 reflect on the work and client requests in consulting companies such as yours?

Clients are quite interested in what's going on abroad and how outsourcing companies are dealing with digitisation and the challenges it brings. They're looking for examples and the best practices. We adapted to the market situation by bringing an entire digital team to us last year. Now we can respond to market demands and provide a more rounded service.

In addition to advice, we can offer the implementation of complete digital solutions. This means that in addition to the tips of digitising today, we also provide a service for designing and programming web pages and other digital content. Clients are no longer just looking for advice, but a full service, which allows us to be innovative.

EY is organising the fifth EY Entrepreneur of the Year project. How has this program influenced the perception of entrepreneurship in Croatia and what benefits are there for participants, especially for the winners?

A lot has changed in these five years since we started the program. Before that, there wasn't much talk about entrepreneurship, startups and other interesting topics [we see] today. I believe that by putting out good entrepreneurial stories to the public, we've contributed to this shift in focus and helped our entrepreneurs become more socially accepted.

By participating in the program, entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to present themselves, their businesses and their successes, while the winner of each year is taken to Monaco in June to the world selection of EY Entrepreneurs of the Year. In those five days of various events, the entrepreneurs can connect and exchange experiences and gain a unique opportunity to present themselves to the whole world.

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Click here for the original article by Darko Bicak for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Novac/Sanja Stapic/Slobodna Dalmacija writes on the 27th of March, 2019, why exactly are the powers that be in Croatia constantly talking about importing workers from around the world if they can be found among students and retired people already here? This is a valid question that is increasingly being put forward by Croatian employers, and it could bring results. A new law has put the spring back in the step of many, and riled others, as it allows retirees to be employed for four hours a day, and still retain all of their rights to their retirement and pensions.

It was in this exact manner that Spar Croatia launched an employment program for retired individuals which lasts for four hours, allowing them continued full access to their retirement benefits and offer a flexible employment schedule. Konzum followed the same path not long after, and this giant company is announcing in the media that they're on the lookout for new people, turning to students and also to retired people to whom they're offering part-time jobs, with pleasant and flexible working hours as extra bait.

With regard to the typical pension payout per month, and also given the fact that there are a great many people among the population who haven't yet ''served'' their full working lives and are perfectly healthy and capable of doing so, the average pension stands at 3,665 kuna, so it comes as no real surprise that more than 5,200 retirees are currently working part-time jobs. There will likely be even more joining them as time goes on.

Croatia boasts (alright, maybe that isn't the right word here) a large portion of the populace who don't work, haven't actually registered themselves as unemployed, aren't actually looking for work, and are between the ages of 16 to 64. At the end of September last year, according to a survey taken by the State Bureau of Statistics, an extremely concerning figure of 48.4 percent of Croatia's working-age population was economically inactive. This means that there are more economically inactive people in a normal state of health and who are perfectly capable of working than there are employed persons in Croatia. Of course, those working ''on the black'' or accepting cash in hand jobs, of which there are a great many, are more difficult to account for in this instance.

The survey carried out by the State Bureau of Statistics showed that out of all of the economically inactive persons in the country, 121,000 of those inactive people do want to work, but they aren't actively seeking employment, while 1.57 million don't want to work because of school, their age, illness and various other similar reasons. These other reasons may also include the desire to stay home to bring up their kids, but a large number do earn a living of some sort owing to the so-called grey economy.

For a country like the Republic of Croatia, in which 4.1 million people were registered as living according to the estimates of domestic statistics, 1.7 million inactive people is a very large number of people living their lives almost entirely outside the world of work, at least officially.

Economist Dr. Damir Novotny points out that Croatia currently doesn't have enough of a workforce in any given sector, which in one part is the result of the entirely wrong direction of the country's social policy and in another part, owing to the opening up of the European labour market for Croatian citizens.

''There is clear research on the fact that those who are able to work are excluded from labour market. It's one of the major problems and mistakes of [Croatian] governments over the past 10 to 15 years. We have a problem with the grey economy, we know it's big and many who are formally [registered as] unemployed aren't actually unemployed in reality. Thirdly, but no less significant, is the opening up of the labour market to the part of the working-active population who have a middle to high level of education, who are extremely easily integrated into the European labour market. We have these complex variables in the function of reducing working-active citizens, and on the other hand we don't have enough immigration policies,'' explained Dr. Novotny for Slobodna Dalmacija.

Employers, encouraged by the fact that today retirees can be hired as part-time workers, have decided to try to solve their problems in such a manner. Workers need them, and last year's quota for the import of foreign workers amounted to over 30,000 work permits, and this year that number could be considerably higher, and we already know that the tourism sector, otherwise Croatia's strongest sector, will be missing about 15,000 skilled workers.

The statistics show that the problem will become even worse as time goes on.

Because of the decline in Croatia's overall population and extremely adverse demographic trends, the number of working-age population is continuing to decrease, and back in September last year, there were just 3.5 million working people in the country, which is 110,000 less people than there were back at the beginning of 2010. During that period, the number of economically active people fell by 102,000 people to 1.82 million, the number of those registered as unemployed was reduced by 19,000 to 1.69 million, and so the negative trend continued.

Economists warn that Croatia will need a workforce, it also needs to work hard to activate the inactive population, the long-term unemployed, younger retirees and even people with certain disabilities. Some experts, such as Dr. Danijela Nestić and Ivo Tomić from the Zagreb Institute of Economics, have calculated that Croatia can increase its overall employment levels in only a relatively small manner, even it it managed to employ all the unemployed people and part of the economically inactive people who don't work for family reasons or because they're discouraged in their job searches.

Discouragingly, Croatia is the European ''champion'' with the most retired people who are still of working age, with the most people saying that they're somehow incapable, or too sick to work.

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Click here for the original article by Sanja Stapic for Slobodna Dalmacija

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 23rd of March, 2019, Business Matchmaker, organised by the eSTUDENT student association and the Office for consulting and career development at Zagreb's Faculty of Economics, will be held on the 26th of March this year at Zagreb's Faculty of Economics (Trg JF Kennedy 6), beginning at 9:00. The completion of the official part is expected to be at 15:00.

This innovative project allows students to personally present themselves in a short four minute selection interview to a group of desired companies. Interviews will be held in the halls of the faculty, and the continuation of the meeting and greeting, to which all participants are invited, will be in "Kefi" after 15:00 that same day.

Business Matchmaker is an event which resembles the speed dating principle and is intended for EFZG students to represent themselves to their potential employers. After the interview, employers and students will evaluate each other and the best students can then expect another round of interviews, where they will be able to learn more and find out more about employment opportunities in their desired companies.

In this interesting and useful way, students on the lookout for an employment position are able to properly develop their self-presentation skills and get to know how the labour market works firsthand. This year's Business Matchmaker will see the participation of as many as 21 companies divided into five different groups.

Lucija Matašin shared her personal experience of last year's Business Matchmaker and what it did for her career-wise:

"By participating in Business Matchmaker, I got a student job, which is honestly everything but ''student'' style. Along with that [I got] a great reference for my CV and a lot of motivation and courage to make it easier to deal with stress in similar situations in the future. I met the people from the company, which I might once meet again, because the world is really small and who knows where I'll be tomorrow, and maybe I'll bump into some of these people again on my way. This eSTUDENT initiative and the Office for consulting and career development really provide EFZG students with something they don't get through their classes.''

The companies participating in the project are 24sata, Addiko Bank, Atlantic Grupa (Group), ATOS, British American Tobacco, Croatia Osiguranje (Insurance), Deloitte, DIV Group, EC, INA, Kaufland, King ICT, KPMG, L'Oreal Adria, mStart, Philip Morris Zagreb, Samsung, SofaScore, Syskit, Talentarium and Zagrebačka banka.

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