Shortages on the Croatian labor market lead to a "relentless struggle" for every employee, and "we are still witnessing a mismatch of higher education with the needs of that market," state agency Hina quoted director general of the national employers' association HUP, Irena Weber, at a panel of organized in Osijek on Monday.

The gathering was organized by the Faculty of Economics in Osijek and HUP.

“We have already underlined this several times, and this was especially evident this year, when we had 11,000 vacant places at universities, which, in addition to the demographic disaster and emigration, testifies to the mismatch of higher education with the needs of the labour market,” said Weber.

Weber warned that “there is a shortage of qualified labor in all industries” in Croatia, and that employers are already in a situation where it is difficult to find anyone to work. “I have already stressed on several occasions that there is a relentless struggle for every employee on the labor market, especially if they are educated, motivated and ambitious people who want to constantly invest in themselves,” Weber said.

She noted that efforts are being made to offset the labor shortage by importing workers, and that more than 100,000 foreign workers have been hired this year. She said this was not the way to go in the long run, and that HUP would be happier if the government had any measures to attract the return of Croatian emigrants abroad.

A senior official from the Labor Ministry, Ivan Vidis, said that every year the ministry conducts detailed analyses and sends clear messages to the education system regarding the occupations needed on the labour market so they can adapt enrollment policies to suit labor demand.

Vidis also pointed out that the government spends about 1 billion kuna (€133 million) every year in what they call “active employment measures,” especially for young people graduating from university, and that during the Covid-19 pandemic more than 12 billion kuna (€1.6 billion) was spent to subsidize wages for some 700,000 people.

“The situation today is that we have more than 1.6 million insured persons in the system, which is the most since 2008, and a record low unemployment rate, given that this summer the number of unemployed people fell close to 100,000, which was last recorded in 1982,” said Vidis.

(€1 = 7.54 kuna)