March the 31st, 2026 – There are less and less Slavonians doing seasonal work on the Adriatic coast, despite them once making up the majority of seasonal workers.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the aforementioned trend of Slavonians doing seasonal work along the Adriatic coast and on the islands has changed significantly. This has also been shown by the figures provided by the Croatian Employment Service (CES).
Last year, 1,125 people from the Slavonian region, or rather from the regional offices and services in Osijek, Vukovar, Vinkovci, Virovitica, Slavonski Brod and Požega, worked along the Adriatic coast for a season, while in 2021, that number was almost twice as high, with 2,050 Slavonians engaging in regulated seasonal work on the Adriatic.
Two years earlier, in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, three times as many Slavonians were engaged in seasonal work on the Adriatic than last year, when there were 3,586 of them. In comparison to 2015, that number is almost five times higher, with 5,112 people having worked during the season, as reported by Večernji list.
“We’d like to point out that these are only workers who were registered with the Croatian Employment Service before going to work during the tourist season (the total number of seasonal tourist workers is much higher),” CES noted, but the downward trend in seasonal workers is clearly visible. When comparing the number of total seasonal workers from back in 2015, when 9,042 people from all over Croatia went to work seasonally on the coast and islands, over half of that number (5,122) were Slavonians. Last year, 2,547 workers went to work from all over Croatia for the season, of which 1,125 were from Slavonia.
“what will you do when we don’t come work here anymore?” ask foreign seasonal workers
Marinela, who has been working as a receptionist during the summer tourist season for years since she graduated from the Hospitality and Tourism School in Osijek said how it is much easier for her to find a job on the coast than in her hometown.
“It seems to me that every year there are fewer and fewer Croatian workers, and more and more foreigners. For the last two summers I’ve been working in Istria, and it’s mostly people from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia working there. Last year, a girl from Serbia with who I worked even asked me: “What will you do when we don’t come to you anymore?’” Honestly, I didn’t know what to answer her,” 38-year-old Marinela stated.
have foreign workers driven down labour prices?
“Yes, they definitely have. Last year, I worked at the reception in a hotel complex in Istria, my salary was 1,450 euros, I had accommodation and one meal a day. Now they offer the same salary, but without accommodation and meals. That’s not normal. I certainly won’t work for them under those conditions because I don’t know where I would find accommodation in the middle of the tourist season in one of the most visited tourist destinations,” Marinela stated, adding that seasonal work is certainly no longer what it used to be.
“Before, we could work five months of the season, find a job at home with a minimum wage and live comfortably for the rest of the year on what we saved during the summer season. Now, there’s absolutely no chance of that. Salaries are a little better than before, but the cost of living is also drastically higher,” she explained.
there will be fewer and fewer slavonians doing seasonal work on the coast
The trend of decreasing seasonal employment of workers from the Slavonian counties is expected to continue. The most common jobs in which seasonal workers, including those from Slavonia, are employed are in the accommodation, food preparation and service industries. Given the needs for workers expressed by employers, we can expect the most employment in the occupations of waiter/waitress, cleaner/cleaner, chef/cook, assistant chef/assistant cook, tourist animator/tourist animator and other related occupations, the CES revealed.
However, not all workers from Slavonia are totally dissatisfied with what is still being offered on the Adriatic. Zorica from Osijek stated that she has been working in the season on the coast for the last three years and that she is very satisfied so far.
“I cleaned a family hotel in Kvarner. The owners are really nice, I had free accommodation, meals and a salary of over 1000 euros, which I couldn’t get as a cleaner here. My children are grown and I have no problem going away to work for a few months, so I will go this year too, but for a bit less time, just because I have family obligations in September,” she said.
slavonians have more options than they used to have
Gala Krešo, head of the posao.hr/job.hr portal, said that part of the reason for this is that today, Slavonians have more options than they did before, and the labour market in continental Croatia has also become more competitive.
“According to publicly available data from the CES, the number of people employed in seasonal jobs fell from 41,467 in 2015 to 13,528 in 2025, so at the national level we’re talking about a drop of almost three times in ten years, which is in line with trends for Slavonia. Interestingly, in its latest report (2025), the CES stated that of all those who worked seasonally outside their place of residence, the majority were from Osijek-Baranja County, which shows that Slavonians still do go and work summer seasons, but their numbers are decreasing overall.
As the leading Croatian employment portal, we closely monitor labour market developments on a daily basis and we can say that candidates today have more options than they did before. The local labour market in continental Croatia has become more competitive, and foreign countries are still attracting an increasing number of people looking for more stable conditions than temporary seasonal employment,” Gala Krešo stated.
