Nearly 140,000 Croatian workers will need to change their occupation by 2030, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company Adriatic says in a study on the transformation of the Croatian labour force in the age of automation and digitalisation.

The study, released earlier this week, shows that approximately 340,000 jobs will disappear due to automation and trends triggered by the coronavirus pandemic and will be replaced by nearly the same number of jobs in new occupations and growing industries, and as a result of increased productivity.

While net demand for labour will remain virtually unchanged, the occupation structure will undergo significant changes. That is why before the end of the decade nearly 140,000 workers in Croatia will need to change their occupation in order to remain in employment, the study says.

By 2030, six percent of total working hours in Croatia will shift from jobs requiring physical skills to jobs requiring cognitive, social, emotional and technological skills. Specific skills, such as those needed to operate equipment and for simple data input and processing, are likely to see the sharpest drop in demand. This is as expected because activities requiring physical strength and skills, as well as data gathering and processing skills, can easily be automated, according to the study.