ZAGREB, July 18, 2019 – Croatia’s survey unemployment rate stood at 7.6% in the first quarter of 2019, decreasing by 2.7 percentage points from the same period in 2018 and by 1 percentage point from the previous quarter, a labour force survey carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS) shows.
A comparison with data provided by the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) and other administrative sources shows that the survey unemployment rate was 2.4 percentage points lower than the “administrative” rate, which was 10% in Q1.
It also showed that of 136,000 persons out of work according to the labour force survey, 103,000 or 76.2% were registered with the HZZ, while 23.8% were not. At the same time, of 154,000 jobless persons registered with the HZZ, 51,000 or 32.7% did not meet the international unemployment criteria.
According to the survey, 1.66 million Croatians were out of work in the first quarter of 2019, an increase of about 17,000 on the previous quarter and of 45,000 on the first quarter of 2018.
The employment rate, which shows the proportion of gainfully employed persons in the working-age population, was 47.2% in the first quarter of this year, up from 46.6% in the fourth quarter of 2018 and from 45.7% in the first quarter of 2018.
The survey showed that the number of working-age people, aged 15 and above, in the first quarter of 2019 was 3.52 million, of whom 1.79 million were active (employed and unemployed) and 1.73 million inactive.
The activity rate, which shows the proportion of economically active people in the working age population, was 51% in the first quarter of 2019, the same as in the previous quarter and in the first quarter of last year.
More news about unemployment in Croatia can be found in the Business section.
