As Poslovni reports, a streak of five months of consecutive reductions in the number of unemployed in the records of the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) ended in July.
At the end of last month, 109,571 unemployed people were registered, i.e., 3,772 more than the month before, and the first third of August also points to the beginning of a seasonal increase in the number of unemployed (compared to yesterday, an increase of about 900 persons was recorded), although currently there are more than 16 thousand vacancies.
Last year, the seasonal deflation only started in August, but a little later seasonal employment started to increase. All in all, in year-on-year comparisons, significantly fewer unemployed persons are still registered with the Institute. Compared to last July, that amounts to 13 percent or 16,431 fewer.
The latest figures from the CES show that during July of this year, slightly less than 15.2 thousand people were newly registered in the unemployment register, or about five percent less than last year.
Every third person from the sector of education
At the same time, the majority (about 70 percent) came to the Institute directly from previous employment, while for every third of them that previous job was in education.
More than 2,500 newly registered persons entered the unemployment register having graduated from regular education, and nearly 1,900 persons registered with the Croatian Employment Service after previously being inactive.
At the same time, last month there were about 30 percent fewer exits from the unemployment register than in July last year, while more than eight thousand out of 11.4 thousand exited the register due to employment.
Nine out of ten (or a total of 7,234 people) established a working relationship with an employer, and the other 824 had other business activities. More than half (448) of them became self-employed by registering a trade, and more than 220 of them did so by establishing a company, while the rest mainly involved earning income from another independent activity that exceeds the amount of the average guaranteed benefit.
There were 5,420 of those who were in the records of the CES and were employed based on these business activities (and not by entering an employment relationship) in the first seven months of this year, or about a hundred more than in the same period last year.
Although there are more men in that group (and the largest number refers to starting a trade or company), it should be noted that practically the entire year-on-year growth is the result of an increase in such (self-)employment among women.
Most of the new employees who entered employment contracts with their employers in July (as well as the newly registered unemployed) were in the tourism and hospitality industries and the trade and processing industry.
Considering the seasonal characteristics of July, last month among the counties, Split-Dalmatia and Osijek-Baranja counties led the way in terms of employment, which are also the counties with the highest absolute numbers of registered unemployed (in Split-Dalmatia there are more than 18.5 thousand or almost 17 percent of the total unemployed in the Republic of Croatia, and in Osijek-Baranja more than 14.2 thousand or 13 percent).
European statistics
The share of the unemployed who receive minimum benefits has been trending downward in recent years, and recently that has been approximately a fifth. In July, it meant about 22 thousand users.
The unemployment rate according to the methodology of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Croatia was at 6.3 percent in the middle of the year (according to ILO standards, there were 114 thousand people without a job), i.e. significantly below 7.7 percent at the same time last year.
Although this 6.3 percent is slightly higher than Croatia’s historically lowest rate, unemployment is currently very low throughout the European Union, with places like the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Malta, and Hungary where it is within (up to) three percent, while Spain and Greece were the only ones with a double-digit unemployment rate according to ILO standards in June.
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