September the 11th, 2026 – 1.72 million people were registered as employed across Croatia during the second quarter of 2026, with the number of employed individuals rising by 21,000 on an annual basis.
There were 84,000 unemployed people across Croatia during the second quarter of 2026, representing a decrease of 2,000 compared to the same period back in 2025. Poslovni reports that the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS) has published data from the Labour Force Survey, according to which it is estimated that in the second quarter of this year there were one million and 723,000 employed people in Croatia, an increase of 21,000 or 1.2 percent, compared to the second quarter of last year.
A comparison of the data collected on those registered as unemployed obtained from the Labour Force Survey with data from the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) and other statistical monitoring based on administrative sources reveals more. It showed that during the second quarter of this year, the Croatian unemployment rate according to administrative records data of 3.5 percent was lower than the survey unemployment rate (4.7 percent) by 1.2 percentage points.
During that period, the average number of unemployed according to the Labour Force Survey was 21 thousand higher than the data of the Croatian Employment Service. Given that the surveyed persons declared whether they were registered with the employment service, the comparison of data shows that of the total of 84,000 unemployed according to the Labour Force Survey, 50,000 or 59.6 percent were registered with the employment service, while 40.4 percent of the survey unemployed were not interested in registering with that service.
At the same time, of the total of 63,000 people registered with the Croatian Employment Service, 13,000 or 20.2 percent failed to actually meet the international criteria for unemployment. It should also be added that in the second quarter of 2026, the employment rate for persons aged 15 to 64 stood at 69.2 percent, which is an increase of 0.4 percentage points compared to the second quarter of last year.
