The government's economic recovery programme has not yet yielded the expected results, so now it needs to be implemented in a more determined fashion and it needs to be upgraded, Croatian President Ivo Josipovic said on Wednesday, commenting on figures concerning the growth of unemployment and gas price hikes.
The programme that was supported by experts must be implemented in a faster and a more determined fashion, but it clearly needs to be upgraded, notably through tax reform and structural changes in the state administration and local self-government units, Josipovic said after a session of his Economic Council.
The latest figures on nearly 320,000 people registered as unemployed with the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) show that the number of those without a job is increasing, which represents a serious economic and social problem, Josipovic said.
The HZZ had 319,845 people registered as jobless at the end of December, up 2.4 per cent on the month and 9.7 on the year.
This was the highest unemployment figure since April 2005, when 320,283 people were registered as jobless.
