Will the country turn to foreign workers?
Croatian employers are currently looking for a large number of seasonal workers, especially in the tourism and trade industry. Interestingly enough, despite a big number of unemployed people, there is a lack of workers in the real sector, it was said on Tuesday at a meeting that was held at the Ministry of Labour and Pension System, reports liderpress.hr on May 18, 2016.
Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP) stated after the meeting that Minister of Labour Nada Šikić and Tourism Minister Anton Kliman had discussed with the HUP representatives a general and increasing problem of the Croatian economy – the insufficient number of seasonal workers.
From 1 January of this year until the end of February, employers have sent requests for much more seasonal workers than before. Therefore, their number for this year could easily surpass 42,000 from the previous year.
Last year, just the tourism and hospitality sector hired almost 22,000 seasonal workers. Because this year an even higher tourism demand is expected, this number could reach 30,000, said the participants of the meeting at the Labour Ministry, emphasizing that the higher demand for seasonal workers in this sector was also a result of the ‘outflow’ of such workers to the European Union member states. Currently, despite all the efforts from the Croatian Employment Service, only 10 percent of the unemployed have shown interest in such jobs, so the question remains how is it possible that a larger number of unemployed people are not interested even to hear about the terms of employment.
“It is evident that a huge structural problem exists in Croatia and ministries will come up with structural and operational measures that will help people find employment and to find a job that suits them, while the companies will be able to find skilled staff they need, which will then lead to an even more successful tourist season. If we do not adopt operational measures that are needed at this point, a conversation will have to begin about the quotas for foreign workers”, it was concluded at the meeting.
