May the 5th, 2023 – The Croatian Employers’ Association’s Igor Skrgatic has stated that a new Labour Law which would allow for greater flexibility is now more necessary than before.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, Croatia is a country lacking in people, warned Igor Skrgatic, the president of the Croatian Employers’ Association’s Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, at a working lunch with Minister of Labor Marin Piletic.
Igor Skrgatic stated that this problem, which has numerous consequences, the most important of which is the lack of manpower, should be properly addressed and work needs to be done properly and diligently on policies that will lead to a functional solution. Therefore, the Croatian Government must think and act in the direction of keeping those who have decided to remain in Croatia, as well as work harder on encouraging the return of those who have left.
Is an immigration strategy coming?
Irena Weber, the chief director of the Croatian Employers’ Association (HUP), told Minister Piletic that the government must raise its general level of awareness of the importance of entrepreneurship because they are the ones who create jobs, fill the state budget and create much needed added value.
The best way to retain workers is by increasing their wages, and for higher wages, Weber repeated, tax relief is needed. As is already more than well known, this will be implemented next year, and while HUP welcomes it, they are also looking for a change in other policies.
In his part of the presentation at a recently held HUP gathering, where this year the topic was the labour market, the Labour Minister was supposed to give an overview of the policies implemented by the state to improve the unenviable position in which entrepreneurs currently find themselves. From everything that the minister said during the 20-minute speech, it turns out that the ruling party doesn’t actually have many concrete policies in this regard, apart from active employment policy measures.
For example, a large influx of foreign labour requires certain properly laid out immigration policies, and Croatia does not yet have such a thing. Piletic announced that the first immigration strategy, which the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) is in charge of, will be adopted by the end of the year.
In the meantime, 124,000 foreign (non-EU) workers arrived in Croatia last year alone (we know this because that’s how many work permits were issued), and this number is expected to reach 200,000 this year. In addition, there are more and more people arriving from more ”exotic” countries among the foreign workers currently arriving, warned Igor Skrgatic, such as Nepalese, Pakistanis, Indians, Uzbeks… all of whom need to be properly integrated into society, and Croatia simply isn’t ready for that process.
In addition, as Igor Skrgatic stated, employers would also like the new Labour Law to be looked into and amended. “Here in Croatia, there is a lot of unused man power, and according to statistics, this country is the record holder for having an inactive population. The lack of interest in taking up gainful work is part of the Croatian mentality and a consequence of rentierism, and on the other hand, a consequence of demographic trends and the general state of the labour market. In order to change that, we need to change the Labour Law and enable greater flexibility for both employers and workers,” believes Igor Skrgatic, adding that the amendments to the Labour Law that came into force at the beginning of this year very much failed to meet employers’ expectations.
Piletic stated that the plan and agreement is to start creating a new Labour Law, but that it isn’t a realistic idea at least for the next year.
“Since the changes came into force at the beginning of the year and the drafting of by-laws and ordinances necessary for the implementation of a new Labour Law are yet to follow, it isn’t realistic to start drafting a new law until we pass all of that,” said Piletic.
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