Unemployment rate drops thanks mainly to tourism and emigration.
The registered unemployment rate in Croatia in July stood at 13.3 percent, which was 0.3 percentage points less than in June and two percentage points less than in July last year, according to preliminary results announced by the Central Bureau of Statistics, reports Večernji List on August 24, 2016.
The registered unemployment rate has declined to its lowest level since September 2008, when it stood at 13.1 percent.
As pointed out by analysts from Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA), the lower unemployment rate in July was a result of usual seasonal trends in which summer months result in improvements in indicators from the labor market. However, they note that, with the end of the main tourist season approaching, some of the workers who have been seasonally employed in the tourism sector and supporting activities will return to the ranks of the unemployed.
“That demonstrates deep-rooted structural problems in the Croatian labor market which is still characterized by a low share of active population, low employment rates, and also by long-term unemployment and the educational structure of the unemployed, which often does not meet the demand for workers of certain profiles”, said the analysts.
They cited the latest data by the Croatian Employment Service about the unemployed in July, which showed that, according to the level of education, 58 percent of the unemployed had completed high school, 21 percent of unemployed had just primary education, and 6 percent of them did not complete even an elementary school. The rest of the unemployed, accounting for some 15 percent of the total number of unemployed, had some degree of university education.
“In addition, official indicators published by the Croatian Employment Service confirmed that the fall in unemployment was partly due to negative migration trends, which further deepen structural demographic weaknesses. In the first seven months of this year, the number of people leaving the unemployment register due to employment abroad was 9.4 percent higher than in the same period last year”, they noted.
According to the expectations of RBA analysts, the official unemployment rate in 2016 could fall below the average registered unemployment rate in 2015 – which was 17.7 percent.
