As Frenki Lausic/Novac writes on the 10th of August, 2019, the number of insured persons exceeded 1.6 million at the end of July and reached the figure of 1,600,405, according to data from the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute. This means that compared to pre-recession July 2008, when the figure stood at 1.639 million, there are only 39,000 insured persons less.
Thus, the total number of insured persons at HZMO increased by 0.4 percent on a monthly basis and 2.4 percent on an annual basis, meaning that compared to July 2018, the number of insured persons increased by 37 thousand.
The number of insured persons at HZMO has in recent years almost taken the lead in determining the number of employees in Croatia, although two other methods are officially used, and both of them show employment growth.
According to data from the Croatian Central Bureau of Statistics, according to the so-called “administrative method” used by the Croatian Tax Administration, the number of employees in June stood at 1,451,541 and in June 2018, it stood at 1,432,701, which means that in June 2019, the number of employees increased by 19 thousand at the annual level.
However, due to changes in the method, it isn’t possible to compare 2008 and 2019 according to the above-mentioned statistics. According to a third method, a labour force survey, also conducted by the CBS, which is also the official statistical method recognised by the European Union, ie the Eurostat umbrella statistical authority, the number of employees is increasing.
According to the labour force survey, for the first quarter of this year, the number of employees on Croatian territory stood at 1.66 million, while in the same quarter of 2018, it was 1.61 million. According to this method, the number of employees increased by 50 thousand. Still, there remains a big difference in the recording of employment growth between the CBS, HZMO and the labour force survey.
For example, in June this year, the number of HZMO insured persons increased by 40 thousand and the number of employees under the CBS administrative method increased by 19 thousand. This is partly explained by the fact that one who is unemployed can pay for his/her own pension, or simply work abroad.
Thus, at the end of June, of 1.59 million HZMO policyholders, 1.36 million were employed by legal entities, 122,193 were employed by natural persons, 66,933 were employed in an obrt (craft), 19,628 were insured farmers, 19,314 were insured in independent professional activities, 88 of them were insured persons employed by international organisations abroad and Croatian nationals employed on the territory of the Republic of Croatia with employers based abroad, while 4715 had extended insurance.
Croatia reached the level of gross domestic product from 2008 this year, and in all likelihood, it will reach the same level of policyholders as back in 2008. This, despite the differences compared to the dynamics of growth provided by the CBS administrative method, nevertheless speaks of a positive dynamic in the the labour market, especially when looking at the labour force survey, but it would be good for CBS and HZMO to finally do something about too much “discrepancy” when it comes to their respective numbers and methods.
RBA analysts, who analyzed HZMO data for July this year, noted that, despite seasonal fluctuations in the labor market, positive annual rates of growth in the number of policyholders have been present since the second quarter of 2015, reflecting the recovery in economic activity and, consequently, the strengthening of labor demand. The growth of insured persons on a monthly basis of 6822 persons is a consequence, they note, of growth in many industries.
However, they emphasise that the noticeable and expected growth in the number of insured persons in the provision of accommodation and food preparation and services is a mere consequence of seasonal employment and an increasing orientation towards tourism-related activities.
In these sectors, the monthly growth of insured persons amounted to 4343 or 3.4 percent, while, on the other hand, the education sector (as it has in previous years) recorded a sharp decrease in the number of insured persons in July, totaling 2656 or 2.4 percent less, but their numbers are likely to increase in September with the turning of a new academic year.
At the annual level, the largest contribution to the growth of insured persons came from the construction industry, in which the total number of insured persons in July amounted to 114,438 persons, which marks 7.5 percent growth on an annual basis.
“In the first seven months of 2019, the average number of insured persons amounted to 1.549 million, which is 2.3 percent or 34,487 more than in the same period in 2018. The largest contribution to the growth of the average number of insured persons in the first seven months came from the construction industry whose share in the total of insured persons is 7.2 percent. With an average annual growth of 7.3 percent in the January-July period, a relatively high contribution to the overall increase of 22 percent is in line with present positive trends in construction,” RBA’s analysts said.
The largest number of employees, ie insured persons, are still in the manufacturing industry (16 percent, or 248,324), but after a slowdown in 2018, the annual number of policyholders since January 2019 has recorded a decrease in the number of policyholders annually in this industry (manufacturing participates with 80 percent in the overall Croatian industry).
Moreover, as the analysts point out, there is also a slight acceleration in an unfavourable trend, and in July the fall in the number of policyholders in the manufacturing industry was one percent per year. Thus, on average, 2.8 percent fewer persons were insured in manufacturing in the first seven months of 2019 compared to the same period last year.
“This is very likely due to the fall in manufacturing output in 2018 and its modest growth in 2019. The growth in the number of policyholders will continue in the coming months, so according to this indicator, employment growth could amount to about two percent,” the RBA analysts concluded.
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