In the first quarter of this year, 1.64 million people were employed in Croatia. This is an increase of 61,000 compared to the same period last year, while the number of unemployed fell by 29,000 to 96,000, which corresponds to an unemployment rate of 5.5%, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS).

According to a DZS survey, there were 1.64 million people employed in Croatia in the first quarter, which is 27,000 more than in the previous quarter.

Compared to Q1 2023, there were 61,000 employees or 3.8% more in Q1 2024.

At the same time, the number of unemployed fell by 23.4% year-on-year and by 5.9% quarter-on-quarter.

The employment rate, which indicates the proportion of the working-age population (15 to 64 years) in employment, was 68% in Q1, an increase of 3.4 percentage points compared to Q1 2023.

The recorded unemployment rate for people of working age was 5.5% or 1.9 percentage points lower than in the previous year.

The survey data also shows that there were 3.25 million working-age residents (over 15 years old) in Croatia in Q1, of which 1.74 million belonged to the active population (sum of employed and unemployed) and 1.51 million to the inactive population.

The labour force participation rate, or the percentage of the working population (aged 15 to 89), was 53.8% in Q1, 0.7 percentage points higher than in the previous quarter and 1.3 percentage points higher than in the previous year.