A total of 1.678 million people were gainfully employed in Croatia in Q2 2019, about 7,000 more than at the same time in 2018, while the number of the unemployed declined by 28,000 to 108,000, bringing the survey unemployment rate down to 6.1 percent, a labour force survey carried out by the state statistics bureau said.

The survey found that 1.678 million people in Croatia were in work in the second quarter of this year, which is 17,000 or slightly over 1% more than in the previous quarter. Compared with the second quarter of 2018, the number of persons employed was higher by about 7,000 or 0.4%.

The number of people out of work fell by 20.6% both quarter on quarter and year on year. According to the survey, 108,000 people were unemployed in the second quarter of 2019, while the number of jobless people in the second quarter of 2018 was 136,000.

As a result, the survey unemployment rate, as a percentage of unemployed people in the total active population, fell to 6.1%, down by 1.4 percentage points year on year and by 1.5 percentage points month on month. It was 7.5% in the second quarter of 2018 and 7.6% in the first quarter of 2019.

In the second quarter of this year, 1.786 million people were economically active, which is 11,000 persons or 0.6% fewer than in the previous quarter. Year on year, their number fell by 21,000 or 1.2%.

The number of inactive population increased both month on month and year on year. In the second quarter of this year, 1.734 million people were economically inactive, which is 8,000 persons more than in the first quarter this year and 9,000 more than in the second quarter last year.

In the second quarter of 2019, there were 3.520 million working-age people (aged 15 and over) in Croatia, down by 3,000 from the previous quarter and by 13,000 from the second quarter last year.

Commenting on initial data from the labour force survey released earlier this month, analysts at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) said that the present number of working-age people was lowest since 2001.

Reflecting negative demographic and emigration trends, the number of working-age population has been decreasing steadily for the last 40 quarters, they noted.

This also affected the activity rate, a percentage of active persons in the working-age population, which fell to 50.7% in the second quarter of this year, decreasing by 0.3 percentage points from the previous quarter and by 0.5 percentage points from the second quarter last year.

The employment rate, a proportion of employed persons in the working-age population, was 47.7% between April and June this year, an increase of 0.5 percentage points quarter on quarter and of 0.4 percentage points year on year.