For the first time in Croatia, a large number of workers from another EU member state have been employed.
The news that Croatian workers are looking for jobs abroad is nothing new, particularly in the last few years since Croatia joined the European Union. However, with the exception of workers from Bosnia and Herzegovina and other less developed neighbouring countries, Croatia rarely manages to attract workers from other countries. But, that seems to be changing. The Brodosplit shipyard from Split has recently employed a substantial number of workers from Poland, which is the first major case of workers from another EU member state being employed in the Croatian production sector, reports Poslovni.hr on October 24, 2017.
According to the shipyard, they have 34 Polish workers. Since they are citizens of the European Union, they are not counted against the quota for foreign workers, of which Brodosplit currently has about a hundred.
What attracted Polish workers to a Croatian shipyard? The Split shipyard says that the reason is the construction of the world’s largest sailing ship, Flying Clipper, which is being built for Star Clippers from Monaco, which was launched during the summer and which should be completed within a year. The sailboat will be able to accommodate 450 passengers on five decks, with 224 cabins, 150 of which of premium quality.
Brodosplit has slightly more than 2,000 employees. For specific jobs needed for this project, workers with special qualifications were sought first in the local labour market, but a low number of interested candidates resulted in cooperation with the Poles. The workers have been employed through the Activ company from Poland, and they will mainly work on the interior decoration of the sailboat. Specifically, they will deal with carpentry works in cabins and common areas for passengers and crew, as well as with cutting and installing flat steel plates. For these jobs, the shipyard had not been able to find the required number of workers in Croatia.
Croatian salaries are apparently acceptable for the Poles. In the shipbuilding sector, Poland was once as powerful as Croatia, but in the past ten years, the sector has been experiencing a similar crisis to the one in the Croatian shipbuilding industry, from restructuring and privatisation to a fall in the number of new assignments due to the global shipbuilding crisis.
Qualified workers from Poland usually go to work in Germany, Norway and Great Britain. The choice of Croatia, which is generally considered to be a low-salary country, is surprising because it shows that salaries in Brodosplit are sufficient for Poles to travel a long way from home and work for some time in Split.
Translated from Poslovni.hr.
