November 23 (SeeNews) - Labour demand in Croatia fell 21.5% on the year in October, after shrinking by an annual 24% in third quarter of 2020, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a local think-tank said.
This trend in labour demand, measured by the Online Vacancy Index (OVI) developed by the Institute of Economics Zagreb (EIZ), has been present for some time now, and after the dramatic fall in April and May, the demand stabilised in the following months at 75-80% of the 2019 level, EIZ said in a statement on Friday.
"These data show that complete recovery of the labour market is still out of sight and that labour demand has reached a plateau," according to EIZ.
Compared to a year earlier, the most sought-after occupations in October were linked to construction, as a consequence of the reconstruction efforts following the 5.3-magnitude earthquake that hit Zagreb in March.
Demand for bricklayers jumped 72%, while demand for construction engineers rose 21% in October. The rise in the demand was particularly visible in central Croatia, where year-on-year demand for bricklayers rose 83%, for construction workers was up 28% and for construction engineers increased 7%.
OVI is a monthly index of online job advertisements developed by the EIZ in cooperation with web portal MojPosao.