The Online Vacancy Index - an index devised by the Zagreb Institute of Economics tracking online job ads - showed that for the seventh consecutive month the labor demand in Croatia exceeds its pre-pandemic levels, state agency Hina said on Friday, citing the Institute's press release.

The worsened epidemiological situation “did not halt activities on the labor market as labor demand exceeded the 2020 and 2019 levels,” the unsigned release said.

“The OVI index for November 2021 shows that labor demand is some 23 percent higher compared to the pre-pandemic November 2019. This is the seventh consecutive month in which labor demand is higher than in pre-pandemic months,” it added.

It said that the most sought after positions in November this year were salespeople, warehouse workers, waiters, cooks and drivers.

“The trend of working from home also continues – the share of advertisements mentioning the option of work from home in November 2021 was around 1.8 percent and these are mostly advertisements for occupations in programming and information technology. Moreover, some 2.7 percent of advertisements were those looking for pensioners, which is in line with an increased demand for pensioners in the past year,” the Institute said.

OVI is a monthly index of online job advertisements developed by Zagreb Institute of Economics in cooperation with the MojPosao job search website. The index aims to provide timely information on current labor demand.