Croatian online job market posted a 21.5 percent year-on-year drop in demand for workers in October, the researchers from the Institute of Economics in Zagreb said on Monday, based on data compiled for their monthly Online Vacancy Index.

Significant drops have been observed for several months now, and after a dramatic fall in April and May during the first coronavirus peak, labour demand in the following months became stabilized at between 75-80 percent of the same period in 2019.

“This data shows that complete recovery of the labour demand market is still out of sight and that labour demand has reached a plateau,” the institute says.

Year on year, the Online Vacancy Index dropped by 27.8% in September, by 18% in August and by 26% in June. The declines were most pronounced in May (-57.4%) and April (-74.7%) when Croatia was in lockdown due to Covid-19.

Looking at occupations in demand in October, compared to the same month last year, there is still a relatively strong demand for occupations related to the construction sector, due to the earthquake in Zagreb.

Demand for bricklayers increased by 72%, while demand for construction engineers rose by 21%.

The rise in the demand for occupations from the construction sector is particularly visible in central Croatia, where year-on-year demand rose by 83% for bricklayers, 28% for construction workers and 7% for construction engineers.

The Online Vacancy Index a monthly index of online job advertisements developed by the Zagreb Institute of Economics in cooperation with the MojPosao job search website.