"In 2021 Croatia was among EU countries with the lowest level of employment, below the European average," state agency Hina informed the Croatian public on Friday, citing a report compiled by Eurostat and published online.

In 2021, the share of employed people in the EU population was 73.1 percent or 189.7 million people, up by 1.4 percentage points from 2020, Eurostat said. This was a higher rate than in the last pre-pandemic year of 2019, when 72.7 percent of the population had a job. The employment rate in the euro zone in 2021 was 72.5 percent, the same as in 2019. In 2020 it was 71.2 percent.

The highest levels of employment in 2021 were registered in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the Czech Republic, which had employment rates of 81.7 percent, 80.8 percent and 80.0 percent respectively. Employment rates under 70 percent were registered in Croatia, Spain, Romania, Italy and Greece.

Greece and Italy had the lowest employment rates, with only 62.6 percent and 62.7 percent of the working-age population employed.  Croatia’s employment rate was 68.2 percent. In 2020 it was 66.9 percent and in 2019 it was 66.7 percent. Spain had an employment rate of 67.7 percent in 2021.

The majority of EU member states (16) in 2021 achieved or surpassed their 2019 employment rates, with Poland reporting the best result (+3.1 pp). It was followed by Romania (+2 pp), and Greece and Malta (+1.8 pp each). Croatia’s employment rate increased by 1.5 percentage points compared with 2019. Latvia is lagging behind its 2019 employment rate the most (-2.0 pp).