March the 18th, 2025 – Dubrovnik tourism has encountered the (by now) infamous Croatian labour force problem. As the Pearl of the Adriatic struggles to “get the staff”, there’s a decided lack of young employees.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Dubrovnik is preparing for the upcoming tourism season in (what would appear to be) earnest. Year after year, those in the Dubrovnik tourism sphere claim, they are increasingly forced to employ foreign workers. A particular problem is the lack of local young workers in the extreme south of Dalmatia.
It seems as if the education system is failing to keeping up with the needs of the labour market yet again. The tourism and hospitality school in Dubrovnik currently has 500 students. Even if every single one of those individuals decided to pursue careers in Dubrovnik tourism, Croatia’s tourism Mecca would still fail miserably in meeting the current high demand for staff in tourism.
“Last year, almost 11,000 positive opinions were issued by the Interior Ministry for the employment of third-country nationals in Dubrovnik-Neretva County. These positions mostly in the local tourism and hospitality sector, such as waiters, assistant waiters, cleaners, hotel cleaners and so forth,” Katarina Krile, head of the CES Dubrovnik Regional Office, emphasised in a statement she gave to HRT.
As for foreign workers (third country nationals from outside the EEA), the CES has data on the total number of requests for opinions for issuing work permits to foreigners. Back in 2024, over 10,000 of them were positively resolved. So far in 2025, the CES – Dubrovnik Regional Office has received 3,000 requests for opinions for issuing work permits to foreigners, they pointed out.
The most sought-after occupations in the Dubrovnik CES area are of course in tourism, as one might expect. Currently, housekeepers, salespeople, cooks/chefs, nurses, cleaners, civil engineers and receptionists and the most sought after.
