A total of 177,790 job-seekers registered with the National Employment Service (HZZ) were hired in the first 11 months of this year, or 5.2% more than last year, Labour and Pension System Minister Mirando Mrsic told a press conference in Zagreb on Friday.
Despite the rise in hiring HZZ-registered job-seekers, the number of the unemployed now exceeds 355,000 because at the start of the crisis in 2008 Croatia failed to launch necessary reforms for economic recovery, so this year too we will see a considerable drop in GDP, Mrsic said. He added that unemployment was expected to culminate in February or March, but would not speculate about the figure.
Mrsic said, however, that the trend of the simultaneous increase in hiring and loss of jobs showed that the restructuring process had begun and that it would continue more intensely next year.
The next year will most probably be one of the worst since the 1991-1995 war because about 10 billion kuna of interest is coming up for payment, and in the last 20 years we have not paid off a single penny of the principle, the minister warned.
Mrsic said that in the next five to ten years the focus should be on improving the educational structure of the workforce and on making necessary changes to the education system to facilitate employability. He said that next year his ministry would continue active employment policy measures.
