Demand for workers in October fell 13.5 per cent compared with the same month last year, according to the latest data from the OVI index of the Economic Institute in Zagreb, published on 6 November. This marks the 14th consecutive month in which the indicator has recorded an annual decline, although the reduction was the least pronounced since June this year.
After seasonal adjustment of the data, the index fell by one per cent in October compared with September, when the monthly drop stood at 4.9 per cent. The OVI index tracks demand for workers based on online job advertisements and was developed in collaboration between the Economic Institute and the MojPosao portal. It measures the number of new online job ads, rather than the number of employed or unemployed individuals, and is based on unique advertisements whose application deadlines end in the observed month.
Regionally, the largest drop was recorded in eastern Croatia, where the number of ads decreased by 28.5 per cent on an annual basis. On the northern Adriatic coast, the number of ads fell by 21.9 per cent, while on the southern Adriatic coast it dropped by 15.3 per cent. In central Croatia, the number of ads was 4.7 per cent lower than in October last year.
In eastern Croatia, the largest negative contribution to the overall result came from ads for construction workers, contributing 4.5 percentage points to the decline. Ads for cooks, secretaries and bricklayers individually contributed to the drop by 3.6 percentage points each. Fewer ads appeared in construction, hospitality, administrative roles and other occupations.
On the list of most in-demand occupations, salespeople retained the first place. Accountants moved up from third to second place, while warehouse workers fell from second to third. Drivers advanced to fourth place, and cooks dropped to fifth. Programmers slid from 15th to 24th place on the list in just one month, with ads for this occupation contributing 0.8 percentage points to the overall annual decline of the index. The largest negative contribution at the national level came from warehouse workers, at 1.9 percentage points. Economists, however, advanced by as many as 12 places, moving from 25th to 13th position.
Regarding contract types, in October, 75.4 per cent of the analysed ads offered permanent contracts, an increase of 15.2 percentage points compared with the same month last year. The share of ads for fixed-term work decreased to 20 per cent, a drop of 15.9 percentage points on an annual basis. The share of ads requiring a high level of education rose by 3.1 percentage points, while the share of ads for workers with low and medium levels of education decreased. The Economic Institute notes that all educational groups contributed negatively to the overall result.
The Institute warns of a methodological change in August 2025, when the scope of ads was reduced, resulting in earlier data being statistically adjusted. The first fully comparable annual rates under the new methodology will be available from September 2026.
