A total of 154,168 jobless people were registered with the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) at the end of October 2020, an increase of 6,734 people or 4.6% on the month and an increase of 26.8% or 32,571 on the year, the HZZ said on Tuesday.

Daily figures show that the number of unemployed persons is growing in November, given that 154,461 people are currently registered with the HZZ, or 293 more than at the end of October.

A total of 7,380 vacancies are currently advertised.

Year on year, the number of job-seekers has continued to rise albeit at a little slower pace after increasing in May by 35.5%, 34.3% in June, 32.4% in July, 32.2% in August and 31.2% in September.

In October there were 23,867 newly-registered unemployed, which is 7.7% more than last October.

Of those 154,000 jobless Croatians, 21% that is 32,308 of them, were on the dole in October.

This October, the HZZ continued implementing the job-retention measures in the business sectors worst hit by the epidemic of coronavirus. The scheme covered 38,683 workers employed by 13,525 employees in September.