Online Vacancy Index (OVI), a monthly index of online job advertisements developed by the Zagreb Institute of Economics in cooperation with the web portal MojPosao, shows that labour demand in the third quarter decreased by 24% on the year, however, the decrease has decelerated.

“OVI index for the third quarter of 2020 shows that labor demand was at 76% of the demand in the third quarter of 2019,” the Institute said on Friday.

“Although this is a significant drop, of 24%, compared to the drop in the second quarter of 2020, which amounted to 53.2%, we are witnessing a relatively smaller decrease,” it added.

“At the monthly level, labor demand in September 2020 was 27.8 percent lower compared to the same month last year, which is comparable to the decreases in August, July and June. These data indicate that, although labor demand is gradually recovering from the consequences of the pandemic, labor market has still not reached its full volume.”

Rising demand for occupations related to construction sector

The institute highlights a rising demand for occupations and professions in the construction sector, due to the planned reconstruction works after the 22 March earthquake.

For instance, “demand for bricklayers rose by 68 percent, demand for construction workers by 24 percent, while demand for construction engineers rose by 13 percent.”

Besides these occupations, demand for teachers and nurses rose on the quarterly level as well.

On a regional basis, the biggest fall in labor demand, compared to the third quarter of 2019, happened in coastal counties, around 30 percent, followed by central Croatia, where a drop of 25 percent has been registered, while the smallest quarterly drop of 8 percent has been registered in eastern Croatia.