At the end of 2022, there were 1,607,734 Croatian policyholders registered with the state pension fund HZMO, which is 2.3 percent up from 2021, and 4.1 percent up from 2019, the state news platform Hina reported on Monday, regurgitating figures published on the pension fund's official website.

Croatian analysts use the number of people with mandatory pension payments as an indicator of how many people are employed, i.e. the figure represents the total number of jobs in the Croatian economy.

Although 1.6 million jobs is about the highest level on record since 2008, the year before the financial crisis, the number still represents only half of the adult population of Croatia, which is around 3.2 million. This total includes some 1.2 million pensioners, who since recently are legally allowed to work part-time while retaining state pension benefits.

In December 2022, “there were 36,062 more pension policyholders from 2021” state platform Hina said, “which is an increase of 2.29 percent year-on-year, a 4.65 percent increase from 2020, and a 4.05 percent increase from 2019.”

By sector, the largest number of jobs were in manufacturing (249,601), followed by wholesale and retail trade (242,858), construction (131,454), and education (122,780).