ZAGREB, May 6, 2019 – A workforce survey conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS) shows that the number of gainfully employed people in Croatia continued to grow, while the unemployment rate declined to 8.4 percent in 2018.
Last year, 1.655 million people in Croatia were employed, an increase of 30,000 from 2017. Figures for the past four years show that their number rose from 1.585 million in 2015 to 1.59 million in 2016 to 1.625 million in 2017.
The employment rate, as a percentage of employed persons in the total working-age population, was 46.9 percent in 2018, up 1.1 percentage point from 2017. Compared with 2016 and 2015, it increased by 2.3 and 2.7 percentage points respectively.
The survey, which follows the methodology used by Eurostat and the International Labour Organisation, also revealed a decline in the number of unemployed persons and the unemployment rate.
Last year, 152,000 people in Croatia were out of work, down from 306,000 in 2015, 240,000 in 2016 and 205,000 in 2017. The unemployment rate, as a percentage of unemployed persons in the active population, fell from 16.2 percent in 2015 to 13.1 percent in 2016 to 11.2 percent in 2017 and to 8.4 percent in 2018.
Last time the unemployment rate was below 10 percent was in 2009, when it stood at 8 percent, while the highest unemployment rate, of 17.3 percent, was recorded in 2013 and 2014.
Analysts say that the decline in the average unemployment rate in recent years is due to a decline in the number of unemployed persons as well as to a decline in the active population and working-age population.
The size of the active population decreased to 1.807 million in 2018 from 1.83 million in 2017 and 2016. Compared with 2015, when it was 1.891 million, their number shrank by 84,000.
The activity rate, as a percentage of the active population (workforce) in the working-age population, was 51.2 percent in 2018, down by 0.4 percentage points from 2017 and by 1.5 percentage points from 2015.
The decrease in the activity rate was due to an ongoing fall in the working-age population, contracting by 56,000, from 3.587 million in 2015 to 3.531 million in 2018.
The working-age population has been decreasing for the last nine years, with analysts warning that Croatia, like other European countries, is experiencing the process of demographic ageing coupled with emigration of the most productive section of the working-age population.
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