About 70 percent of Croatians are satisfied with their job, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (SSSH) said earlier this week based on the results of a survey on job satisfaction.

About 70 percent of respondents in Croatia said they were pleased with their job, lower from the EU average, which was 86 percent in 2015, SSSH official Suncica Brnardic said ahead of a conference on job quality, organised by the trade union federation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany.

Only one in five Croatians said they were very pleased with their job, according to the survey which polled 500 employed people, while in Germany the ratio is one in three.

However, SSSH said there was a huge contrast in replies by respondents working on fixed-term contracts and those on open-ended contracts, with the former much more dissatisfied because it was more difficult for them to plan their future and income. Fixed-term contracts were also described as a reason for job insecurity.

“Those respondents were drastically less satisfied in all elements of the survey, saying that they had no way to influence their work conditions or training, and were less pleased with their working hours,” Brnardic said.

The survey asked respondents to name reasons for their job satisfaction – the strongest reason cited was salary, followed by other important reasons including the opportunity to work in their profession, the level of education, being covered by collective agreements, and the presence of trade unions in their company.

Head of SSSH, Mladen Novosel, said that Croatian workers were relatively satisfied with their job and work conditions, but that this is largely dependent on the terms of their work contract.

At the moment, slightly more than 20 percent of Croatian workers work on fixed-term contracts, while the European average is 14.4 percent, and the biggest problem is that almost all newly-employed workers are hired on fixed-term contracts, Novosel warned.

“All fixed-term contract workers, with contracts shorter than six months, come with less favourable work conditions, lower wages, and more problems with employers honouring official working hours,” Novosel said.

Across the board, job satisfaction ranged between 65 and 67 percent in the survey, but compared with other EU countries, Croatian workers ranked second to last, with only the Greeks behind them.

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