November the 11th, 2024 – There has been an increase in newly registered Croatian companies, and the sectors they span is quite surprising – covering everything from courier services to renovators.
As Jadranka Dozan/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, employment is on the up and there’s been a significant decline in unemployment across Croatia. Despite the “good news” on the face of the matter, the country continues to be plagued by labour shortages. The employment growth we’ve seen refers primarily to the employment of foreign workers
The aforementioned has been among the most commonly focused on stories regarding the state of the domestic labour market for a long time now. Be that as it may, the official statistics also reveal something about it to us, and the interesting parts lie in business demographics. The number enterprises at the end of last year increased by 13.2 thousand or almost six percent, reaching more than 240 thousand. In five years, however, the number of domestic companies increased by as much as 65 thousand or 37 percent.
newly registered croatian companies
At the same time, a slightly faster pace has been being recorded in the start-ups of newly registered Croatian companies. Last year, the number of new arrivals exceeded 30,000, which is about 15 percent more compared to the year before, and 80 percent compared to their number five years earlier. Newly registered Croatian companies last year employed slightly more than 39,000 individuals. With regard to the motives for going into entrepreneurship, in the analyses of research results such as the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, it has been concluded for years that Croats go into entrepreneurship much more often out of necessity than out of recognition of business opportunities.
the motives behind entrepreneurship in croatia are changing…
Over more recent years, there has been an increase in the number of those who choose to open newly registered Croatian companies because they’ve recognised various market opportunities. Considering the economic growth or demand trends on the labour market, this isn’t really a surprise. More interesting discoveries lie in the very branches in which newly registered Croatian companies operate.
According to the provisional data held by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), in absolute numbers (i) last year, the highest amount of newly registered Croatian companies were in three industries, two of which are the most represented in the overall structure.
professional, scientific and technical
In the group of Professional, scientific and technical activities (which includes every sixth currently active company), most companies were newly registered. They numbered 5,062, which is about 700 more than the previous year.
eu cash and post-earthquake construction are linked
Business activity and opportunities associated with record inflows of EU cash, especially as part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, such as reconstruction after the earthquake, have had a positive impact on this. The same is true for the construction sector (holding a 13 percent share in the total number of companies), in which 4,552 newly registered Croatian companies popped up last year. That is equivalent to about 500 more than the year before.
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In the case of Administrative and auxiliary service activities, slightly more than 2,900 newly registered Croatian companies represent an annual decline in dynamics (140 more were registered the year before).
a significant increase for the education sector
However, when looking at individual areas of activity, last year’s so-called winners in terms of the relative increase in the number of newly registered Croatian companies lie in other branches. In the field of education, the number increased by more than 63 percent (from 717 to 1173). State statisticians have pointed out that the increase in the teaching segment in the field of sport and recreation and “other education and teaching” primarily contributed to this growth.
electricity and gas suppliers
The relatively large growth of newly registered Croatian companies, by almost 60 percent (from 129 to 206), stands out in the area of electricity and gas suppliers. It also does in terms of companies dealing with air conditioning. That is primarily attributed to the growth in the number of producers of electricity from renewable energy sources (RES).
transportation and warehousing, as well as courier services
In addition to the aforementioned, with an almost 55 percent jump in the number of new registrations (from 2022’s 1,575 to 2,438 in 2023), the activity of Transportation and warehousing also stands out. According to the CBS, newly registered Croatian companies in the niches of taxi transportation, road transportation of goods and providing “other postal and courier services” have also increased.
market-oriented enterprises
It’s worth mentioning that the statistics of business demographics of companies include market-oriented companies. A total of 240,000 active companies in 2023 employed slightly more than 1.3 million people, the equivalent of 3.6 percent more than back in 2022. Alongside the latest (temporary) data issued by the CBS, they state that the so-called survival rates of these companies have had no major deviations compared to previous periods.
rapidly-growing croatian companies
When it comes to rapidly-growing companies (with an average annual growth of 10% or more in a three-year period), the CBS has monitored those that have ten or more employees in the first year of the observed period. In the period from 2020 to 2023, there were 2,071 of them, with more than 118,000 paid employees. As state statisticians have duly pointed out, companies with accelerated growth are most typically represented in the Manufacturing industry (396). Over the last year of observation, this sector employed 22,800 people. In terms of number of employees, the unsurprisingly fast-growing business of providing accommodation and preparing and serving food and beverages performed the best, which employed 25,700 thousand people last year alone.
