Half a million Croatians not looking for a job, despite labour shortages

Split

While employers across Croatia struggle to find workers and increasingly turn to foreign labour, over half a million working-age citizens are not working — and not even seeking employment.

As Josipa Ban from Poslovni.hr writes, according to the latest Labour Force Survey, 1.5 million people in Croatia are considered economically inactive, nearly as many as the 1.68 million currently employed.

Though employment rates have improved over the last decade, the number of inactive people has barely changed.

Experts say the problem is complex. The inactive group includes pensioners, people with health issues, and many others, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

Measures aimed at activating this group have so far been limited, inconsistent, and mostly ineffective.

Economist Predrag Bejaković explains that Croatia’s high inactivity rate is driven by demographics, an education system not aligned with the labour market, and poorly targeted social policies.

He says that reforms need to include all age groups, especially women, young people, older citizens, and people with disabilities.

One worrying trend is the growing number of inactive people with vocational or higher education.

Many struggle to find jobs in their fields and are unwilling to switch careers. Bejaković warns that young people must be aware of the job market when choosing what to study.

Some positive steps have been made, like pension system changes allowing retirees to return to work, but more needs to be done. Current efforts to retrain long-term unemployed people, such as skill vouchers, have missed the mark.

Since most of the long-term unemployed aren’t registered with the employment office, they can’t even apply.

To bring more people into the workforce, experts suggest investing in lifelong learning, better support for women through childcare and flexible jobs, and linking social benefits to work activity so taking a job actually pays off.

“The goal is to make work more rewarding than benefits and help people re-enter the job market — which would also reduce undeclared work,” Bejaković concludes.