The total annual quota for employment of foreigners in Croatia for this year amounts to 7,026 work permits, of which 2,080 will be issued for the construction sector.
As Poslovni Dnevnik reports on the 23rd of July, 2017, Croatia expects yet more foreign workers.
On Saturday, the Labour and Pension System Minister, Marko Pavić, announced that Croatia will add two thousand work permits to increase the quota for the import of workers in the field of construction, where there is a deficit of domestic workers.
”An increase in the quota is needed in order for the construction sector to finalise assumed commitments, i.e: investments, given that there is not enough domestic labour in that sector” stated Pavić.
According to recent data and recent reports in the media, the tourism industry is allegedly at a loss of approximately 2,700 workers, despite the fact that 171,044 people in Croatia are officially registered as unemployed, not to mention those who have not registered themselves with that status.
“To solve this problem, the Croatian Chamber of Economy has proposed the introduction of a more flexible model for determining the employment quota of foreign citizens, which would allow employers to approve the employment of foreigners as needed”, stated the President of the Croatian Chamber of Economy, Luka Burilović, before explaining that tourism is Croatia’s most important economic branch, which accounts for almost one fifth of the total Croatian GDP, and is an area which employs 6-7 percent of all employees in Croatia.
Over the last few years, we have witnessed an increase in tourism revenue. It is believed that more favourable trends in overnight stays and tourist income have been partly influenced by the result of a more positive economic situation within the EU, which is the most significant market for Croatia. Namely, from the total number of foreign overnight visits, tourists from the rest of the EU market make up almost 90 percent of the total overnight stay quota.
The HGK (Croatian Chamber of Commerce), together with the HUP and UPUHH, already warned that just increasing quotas would not be an adequate solution to the problem of the labour force in the tourism sector.
It has been stated that for the further development of tourism and the Croatian economy, it is necessary to liberalise the system of the employment of foreigners, which can then be adjusted to the needs of the market instead of the current system, in which the needs of the foreign labour force are assessed just once annually.
Exerpts taken and translated from Poslovni.hr
