April 7 (SeeNews) - Labour demand in Croatia was nearly 24% higher in annual terms in March, showing the first significant signs of recovery from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy, after shrinking by 18% year-on-year in February, a local think-tank said.
This is the first positive change in the the Online Vacancy Index (OVI) in the last one-year period although demand for labour had already been affected by the pandemic in March 2020, the Institute of Economics Zagreb (EIZ) said on Tuesday in its monthly report on the country's labour demand measured by the OVI.
Labour demand in Croatia in March 2020 was 23% lower compared with March 2019, while demand for labour in March 2021 was at about 95% of its pre-pandemic level, EIZ noted.
In the first quarter of 2021, labour demand was 8.5% lower compared with the like period of 2020, and was 18% lower compared with the January-March period of 2019.
OVI is a monthly index of online job advertisements developed by the EIZ in cooperation with web portal MojPosao.