In Q3 2018 the number of employed Croatians rose by 0.4 percent year-on-year to reach 1.689 million, while the number of officially registered jobless people dropped 19.9 percent to a new record low of 133,000, the state statistics bureau said.

This means that the unemployment rate slid by 1.7 percentage points year-on-year to 7.3 percent, the lowest level since the Q3 2008, Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) analysts said in their comment of the figures on Monday.

The size of active population in the Q3 2018 was 1.822 million. According to estimates, Croatia had 4.1 million inhabitants in mid-2017.

“Quarter-on-quarter, the size of active population increased by 14,000 or 0.8 percent, while year-on-year it declined by 27,000, or 1.5 percent,” RBA said.

The increase in the number of active population in Q3 2018 from Q2 2018 was due to a rise in the number of people in jobs, by 18,000, and a drop in the number of registered jobless people by 3,000, which in turn is to a large extent the result of increased employment during the peak tourist season.

State statistics bureau’s figures show that the size of the inactive population in Q3 2018 was 1.707 million.

“Quarter-on-quarter, the number of inactive population declined by 18,000 or 1.0 percent, while year-on-year their number increased by 12,000 or 0.7 percent. As a result, the total working-age population in the country declined to a new record low of 3.529 million, continuing an uninterrupted decline started in 2009,” RBA said.

“The fact remains that structural weaknesses continue to be present on the Croatian labour market, including a mismatch between supply and demand for labour, low employment, and an increased migratory outflow of young working-age population,” RBA said.

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