The Online Vacancy Index (OVI) for 2022 showed that labor demand went up by 26 percent from 2021 and by 32.3 percent from the pre-crisis year 2019, which indicates that demand on the Croatian market is historically high, the state news platform Hina cited a press release from the Zagreb Institute of Economics on Monday.

As in previous years, advertisements for workers with lower qualifications and those for workers with secondary level education made the largest contribution to the annual growth of demand, while demand for workers with high degree education contributed with only 2.4 percentage points in the increase of the overall number of advertisements, which amounted to 12.1 percent, the Institute said.

The five most sought-after occupations were salesperson, waiter, cook, warehouse worker, and bookkeeper.

“The biggest contribution to the overall increase in labor demand was made by advertisements seeking salespersons, warehouse workers, bookkeepers, waiters, hotel/hospitality staff and clerks, while advertisements for programmers, construction workers, carpenters and brick layers made rare negative contributions,” the Institute said.

Last year, the number of contracts offering fixed-term employment decreased annually from 46.2 percent to 46.1 percent of all job advertisements, and the number of job advertisements offering contracts for permanent employment decreased from 44 percent to 43.7 percent.