ZAGREB, 7 July 2022 -The average net pay paid by legal entities in Zagreb in April 2022 amounted to HRK 8,815 (€1,172), an increase of 6.6% from April 2021, according to the data provided by the city's strategic planning and development department.

Compared to the monthly national average, which amounted to HRK 7,547 (€1,003), the average take-home pay in Zagreb was HRK 1,268 (€169) higher.

The highest monthly net salary in legal entities in April was paid in the crude oil and natural exploitation sector amounting to HRK 34,558 and the lowest was in the leather industry, in the amount of HRK 4,869 the city's strategic planning and development department has reported.

The average gross salary in Zagreb was HRK 12,366, up 7.7% from April 2021.

(€1 = HRK 7.518169)

For more, check out our business section.

June 11, 2022 - With official Eurostat figures shown through a map designed by the Landgeist portal, it is shown that Croatia is the European country with the most young adults living with their parents.

Several factors could be attributed to the fact that Croatia ranks first among the countries with the highest percentage of young adults (25-29 years old) who still live with their parents. High rental costs, family businesses, or it could even be an attachment issue. The fact is that 80% of young adults in Croatia have not yet left the nest.

Although Croatia is the European country that stands out from the rest, the same trend can be highlighted in other countries of the Balkan region, such as Serbia (76%), Montenegro (79%), Albania (73%), Kosovo (69 %) or North Macedonia (71%).

Landgeist is a web portal that compiles and analyzes statistics from different countries and continents of the world, on a wide variety of topics, and designs maps that help to better understand the analysis and compare the numbers between different countries or regions more easily. Landgeist commented on his most recent map of the percentage of young adults living with their parents:

''Until what age young adults live with their parents can depend on a lot of factors. Culture, housing, the economy, and religion can all play an important role in that. For this map, we can straight away see that there is a very strong geographical pattern for this subject.'', analyzed Landgeist.

''The differences in numbers are enormous in Europe. While only a very tiny percentage of Danes between the ages of 25 and 29 live with their parents, the vast majority of people in the same age group in the Balkans live with their parents.'', added the portal.

''As we start looking at south and eastern Europe, we can see that the percentages are mostly over 50%. The highest percentages can be found in the Balkans. In most of the Balkan countries, 70% of young adults live with their parents. The number is the highest in Croatia, where 80% of young adults live with their parents.'', said Landgeist.

''The data for this map comes from Eurostat. The data also includes people that live with only one parent''. For this dataset, Landgeist thought it would be most interesting to look at the oldest age group of young adults. ''The source data contains numbers for the ages of 16 to 34. However, there is no data for specifically the 30 to 34 group, only 25 to 34. Which is too broad of an age group, according to Landgeist. Especially because there often is quite a bit of a difference between people in their late twenties and early thirties when it comes to job stability and income.'', they added.

''The data comes from a survey and is collected through interviews. So, the data is not based on where people are officially registered. In some countries, young people sometimes stay registered at their parent’s place. While in reality, they live elsewhere to study. This could skew the data for some countries. Fortunately, this dataset is based on where people actually live, instead of where they’re registered.'', Landgeist precise.

The web portal, using another source, also designed a map to analyze the situation of young adults between 25 and 34 years old, and in it Montenegro now leads, with 68%. However, Croatia remains in the top spot, this time tied second with Serbia, with a percentage of 65%.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, 7 June 2022 - Minister of Justice and Public Administration Ivan Malenica said on Tuesday that he empathized with judicial staff who protested across Croatia over low salaries and announced the adoption of a new law to introduce an equal pay for equal work model.

"I am aware that some of the staff have low salaries and I can understand their dissatisfaction. However, this issue must be addressed comprehensively through the new law on wages. That law is part of the activities we are implementing through the National Recovery and Resilience Program (NPOO). We have about HRK 51 million under the NPOO to improve the system," Malenica said.

He added that the ministry was currently analyzing the existing indexation system and that the new law would resolve the wage issue completely in line with the "equal work, equal pay" model.

Malenica also said that the deadline for the adoption of the new law was 30 June 2023 and that the ministry considered the unions as its partners.

Underscoring that the government had restored social dialogue, he recalled that the base pay for civil servants had been increased and that after the last increase in May, it amounted to HRK 6,286.

Other benefits were also increased, such as Christmas bonuses, holiday pay, and regular health check-ups. In addition, tax reforms have been implemented that have increased incomes for the lowest-income earners, Malenica said.

Judicial staff, mostly civil servants and clerks who are dissatisfied with their status and entitlements, protested on Tuesday outside court buildings and state attorney's offices across Croatia. 

The protest was organised by the union of state and local government employees, which pointed to the extremely difficult financial situation of employees in the judiciary and the fact that one-third of them were left out of a 9% salary increase in 2019.

For more, check out our politics section.

March the 21st, 2022 - Have Croatian tourism companies finally begun to engage in a little self-reflection and started learning from their past mistakes following the last two unprecedented years dominated by a global pandemic and now a war in Europe? It seems so, and just in time for Easter.

As Novac/Jutarnji/Barbara Ban writes, the currently great uncertainty all over Europe over the war raging in Ukraine has slowed bookings down, but that doesn’t mean the summer season this year will be bad. Moreover, the latest global analyses presented this week at the Berlin Tourism Fair ITB show that the demand for holidays and travel is higher than last year and of course higher than it was back during 2020, and that tourist traffic across Europe this year will be at 90 percent of what was recorded back in pre-pandemic 2019.

The Germans, the British, the Americans and the Dutch will more than likely travel the most. Croatian tourism companies and some of the largest hoteliers in the country are sticking to this idea, noting that due to the situation currently playing out in Eastern Europe following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, booking has been slowed down, but there have been no cancellations. They have already started hiring staff earlier so that they don't have the same dire situation with the workforce as they did last year, and now there are struggles for every worker. They raised salaries by 15 percent, and for some deficient occupations, by up to 50 percent.

No cancellations

Marina Cvitic from the Trade Union of Istria, Kvarner and Dalmatia, says that they are preparing for the upcoming tourist season as if it would be a normal one, especially in the more northern part of the Adriatic, since it is a destination many people drive to.

''Regarding the war in Ukraine, for now, no one is too worried when it comes to booking. It's true when they say that booking has slowed down for now, however, there are no cancellations and that's good. It's obvious that last minute bookings will be even more pronounced this year. That's why employment started going very well in March because everyone is preparing for Easter, which is just around the corner now.

Employers in Croatian tourism companies don't want the same situation that happened last year to happen again, when chaos ensued due to high levels of caution when hiring in the peak season. Just by looking at the media and the Croatian tourism companies in the network, it's clear that there are issues being experienced by companies in the labour market. Every fifteen days or so, companies advertise and repeat the conditions under which workers will be employed. From this it can be concluded that they haven't yet secured a sufficient number of employees for the peak tourist season. Although the agreed wage increases for this year are more significant than in the years before the pandemic when the maximum increase was 2 - 4 percent, and during the pandemic wages stagnated, due to the impact of inflation reaching a record 6.3 percent, wages will not significantly affect the standard of the workers. Despite the fact that in most companies, the price of labour has been agreed upon and despite the fact that costs are rising for companies too, I'm afraid that employers will have to tighten their belts further during the season if they want to work it all and settle for less profit than what they're used to,'' Cvitic pointed out.

Old mistakes

She added employers in Croatian tourism companies and the overall hospitality industry could pay a high price for repeating tired old mistakes. She explained that, except for the last two pandemic-dominated years, all Croatian tourism companies have achieved very good results, had a profits reaching the millions and that the owners "pulled out" that money through dividends and that investments were made in raising the quality of facilities and new acquisitions.

''There was money for everything, but not for the workers. Not to mention that there was no higher employment for an indefinite period of time at all. On the contrary, the number of full-time employees only decreased as older workers retired by natural outflow. Not to mention that incentive severance pay has stimulated older but still able-bodied workers to leave companies. In such conditions, our experienced tourism workers, and even full-time workers, who are highly valued, left Croatia and unfortunately, although we warned of it, nobody was worried about that,'' Cvitic added.

She explained that now the situation is completely different and that after two years of the pandemic, Croatian tourism companies have drastically lower profits, the results are much weaker than they were before the pandemic, and salary increases and other material rights being offered to employees as a lure are much higher.

''So, now that there isn't much money, much more is being allocated for workers than was allocated when there was room to do so. On the other hand, employees are now aware of their roles and often set conditions they never thought of before, such as their desire for two days off a week, one-shift work, and, of course, unions now see the opportunity and are trying to direct wage policy, as well,'' Cvitic stated.

Salary increases

She noted that this year's salary increase is up to 15 percent, and for some deficient occupations, that increase rises up to as much as 50 percent, and that the maximum non-taxable amounts are planned for the amount of 5,000 kuna. There is also free food, a tax-free Christmas bonus of 3,000 kuna and a gift of 600 kuna.

If employers had treated their workers like that ten years ago, if they'd hired workers for an indefinite period of time as they do now, if they'd hired permanent seasonal workers as they do now, if they'd rewarded seasonal workers even after the season was over as they are doing now, we wouldn't be experiencing any of the issues we now are. With all the increases in wages and income, they would have a Croatian workforce that is of better quality, but also cheaper, and there would be no need to try to import foreign workers,'' Cvitic believes.

She believes that the situation we experienced during the last summer season will not be repeated, when due to the lack of workers, some Croatian tourism companies, hotels and restaurants didn't even bother to open their doors.

For more, check out our business section.

January the 31st, 2022 - Around 50,000 Croatian employees are taking home among the lowest wages in the entire European Union (EU). These workers are primarily from the wood/wood processing, textile and leather industries.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian minimum wage at this moment in time stands at 624 euros per month, gross. The highest in the EU is unsurprisingly 2,257 euros in Luxembourg, and in only four countries in the European Union do workers receive a lower minimum wage than here in Croatia. In Hungary, Romania, Latvia and Bulgaria, people take home the EU's lowest minimum wage of a mere 332 euros.

“I should be able to afford to buy some decent clothes, have some sort of normal social life life, such as being able to go to watch a film at the cinema or going to watch a match. What about holidays? It's all getting harder,'' said one person, who added that if they're havint to work all twelve months of the year and they can't even go on holiday, then they think it's beneath the honour of every person.

The average Croatian household spends more than two thousand kuna a month on food alone. Another 1.2 thousand kuna goes to housing costs and another 1.2 thousand to transportation. That means that for pure and simple survival, it costs 4.5 thousand kuna per month, and the minimum wage in Croatia at the moment is 3750 thousand kuna. That is without the latest price increases. Across the European Union, as trade unionists point out, the poverty indicator is the data on how much is spent on food, as reported by Dnevnik.hr.

"The share of food costs on average across the European Union stands at about 13 percent, in more developed European Union countries, it is below 10, and in Croatia more than it's more than 27 percent without any increase," said Kresimir Sever from the Independent Croatian Trade Union.

Compared to the Netherlands, the minimum wage is almost three times higher: 1,725 ​​euros, which is almost 13 thousand kuna per month. They spend less than 13 percent of their salaries on food, compared to more than 27 percent here in Croatia, and the price of electricity is a little less than 13 euro cents per kilowatt hour, which is even slightly lower than it costs in Croatia.

When asked if they think that the time will come when the minimum wage for Croatian employees stands at 13 thousand kuna, they answered: "I think so. When young people realise that they shouldn't run away but stay here and fight against those who do evil.'' Some naturally jaded Croatian employees have a different opinion: "I don't think so, I don't believe in fairy tales."

While the meat industry is announcing a rise in meat prices of up to 30 percent, the unions are asking the Croatian Government for all measures to help - they should lower VAT on energy, offer higher aid to the poorest among us, and lower excise duties on fuel, with the addition of more price caps. They also pointed out that chain price increases are on their way in the coming months, and the minimum will remain the same until next year.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.