As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the average net Croatian wage of employees who hold a university degree exceeded 9,000 kuna back in pre-pandemic 2019 and increased by 11 percent over the last five years, while the salaries of unskilled workers grew by 20 percent, Vecernji list reports.
Among employees in legal entities, companies and public institutions, Croatia has about 265 thousand highly educated workers who make up the second largest group of employees by education.
The most numerous are workers with a high school level education, of which there are about 595 thousand. Their average monthly wage stood at 5,460 kuna and reached 60 percent of the average salary of university graduates. According to that, schooling truly does pay off, meaning that university-educated person in Croatia earns about 109 thousand kuna per year on average, and those with a high school diploma earn much less – about 65 thousand kuna.
Three groups of employees earn more than the national average, those with a university degree, those with higher education qualifications and other highly qualified workers. A high school diploma brings about two thousand kuna less in terms of Croatian wages than a university degree does. This is equal to 7154 kuna. In Croatia there are about 98 thousand employees who have a high school diploma only. In third place are a small number of highly skilled workers – about 10,500 of them – who earned an average of 6,562 kuna before the coronavirus pandemic struck.
It has always been claimed that Croatia is chronically short of skilled workers, but this couldn’t actually be concluded from looking more deeply into the movement of Croatian wages because in five years, the average wages of these groups of employees rose by only ten percent and grew the slowest in groups who do have a higher/university education.
In the last five years, the Croatian wages of about 56 thousand unskilled workers were the ones to have actually grown the fastest – by a surprising 20 percent – exceeding four thousand kuna, reports Vecernji list.
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