A recent survey of wages and perks offered to workers on the Croatian labor market showed that a majority of employers polled have raised wages and increased non-monetary benefits for their workers in the first half of 2022, state news agency Hina said on Wednesday.

The findings of the survey, conducted by the Manpower human resources company, showed that 60.5 percent of companies covered by the survey raised the pay of workers on their payrolls, and 32.6 percent increased perks and financial benefits.

The survey has covered 129 companies from 14 different sectors: 23.3 percent of those polled are from the retail sector, 18.6 percent from the manufacturing and automobile industry and 16.3 percent from the information technology sector. A vast majority of those polled (73 percent) do business in Zagreb and its surroundings.

According to the findings released on Wednesday, 27.9 percent of all the companies covered by the poll plan to raise the wages by up to 5 percent in the second half of 2022, and 24.8 percent of those polled plan a 6-10 percent increase in salaries they give to their employees.

One in ten employers (10.9 percent) plan an increase of 11-15 percent, and 6.2 percent of those polled are likely to up the pay 16-20 percent. A majority of the employers intend to raise the wages and benefits for the purpose of retaining the current employees, Hina quoted Manpower as saying.

“The crisis on the labor market is not abating, and awareness has been raised about the need to attract and keep workers through different non-material compensations,” Hina cited an unnamed person from Manpower as saying.