At the end of April 2020, there were 159,234 unemployed persons in Croatia, which is 11 percent more compared to Mach 2020 and 21.5 percent up from in April 2019, the national employment bureau HZZ said on Monday.

According to HZZ figures, at the end of April 2020 there were 15,773 more jobless people month-on-month and 28,144 more year-on-year.

Croatia’s national chamber of commerce HGK said recently that this is the first time in recent history that unemployment increased in April, as April is when unemployment usually starts to ddrop due to people getting short-term jobs in the tourism industry in the run-up to the summer tourist season.

Daily updates by HZZ indicate that unemployment level continued to grow in May, and as of Monday there are 159,560 jobless Croatiana, or 325 more than at the end of April, ten days ago. At the same time, there are 8,058 vacancies advertised.