OVI index
OVI for April 2025: Number of job advertisements increases only in eastern Croatia
May 6, 2025
The OVI index recorded a drop on an annual level for the fourth month in a row, amounting to -6.3 percent compared to April last year, which is the second largest decline rate since the beginning of the year. Seasonally adjusted values indicate that, compared to the previous month, labor demand also fell, by -2.4 percent, thus contributing to the total -8.2 percent decrease in the index since the beginning of the year. Considering that the second quarter has just started, we should at least wait for the data for May before we can comment on the labor market signals and their impact on the real GDP growth rate with greater certainty.
The five most sought-after occupations have remained the same compared to April 2024: salesperson, cook, waiter, warehouse worker, and driver, although all five saw lower numbers than a year ago. This is not so much a sign of weaker demand as it is a reflection of the increasing number of employees in previous months who were hired for permanent employment jobs, consequently reducing the frequency of job advertisements. The biggest negative contribution to the index growth rate in April came from advertisements for salespersons, waiters, and drivers, while the biggest positive contribution came from advertisements for jobs in finance, teachers, bricklayers, and mechanical engineers. Among the most sought-after occupations, beauticians fell by eight places, from the 20th to the 28th place. The largest increase among the most sought-after occupations was recorded by teachers, who climbed the list by 11 places, from the 33rd to the 22nd place.
Compared to April 2024, the share of job advertisements requiring secondary level education decreased (from 65.5 to 61.9 percent), while the shares of advertisements requiring low or high levels of education rose from 16.2 to 16.5 percent and from 18.3 to 21.6 percent, respectively. The biggest negative contribution to the index annual decline rate came from job advertisements requiring secondary level education, while a positive contribution came from job advertisements seeking high levels of education. The share of job advertisements offering permanent employment continued its growth trend in April, mostly at the expense of fixed-term employment contracts, but also at the expense of seasonal employment. In the last five years, the share of job advertisements offering permanent employment rose by as much as 11.6 percentage points.
Eastern Croatia is the only region with a positive contribution to the job advertisement growth rate in April, with an annual increase in the number of job advertisements of 7.0 percent. The occupations with the largest positive contribution to the index growth rate in that region were medical doctor/dentist, pharmacist, and nurse. In central Croatia, which accounts for more than half of all job advertisements, the biggest positive contribution came from advertisements for employees in finance and production, mechanical and civil engineers, and cooks.
What is OVI?
Online Vacancy Index (OVI) is a monthly index of online job advertisements developed by the Institute of Economics, Zagreb in cooperation with the web portal MojPosao. The index aims to provide timely information regarding current labor demands. OVI index is developed by means of simple enumeration of single new job advertisements whose application deadlines end within the same month for which the index is being calculated. Given that advertisements published by only one web portal are taken into account, the number of job advertisements is expressed as an index (with the base year being 2020).The index is to be interpreted in such a way that the values greater than 100 represent growth when compared to 2020, and accordingly, that the values less than 100 represent a decrease with respect to the base year. The index is seasonally adjusted using the X-12-ARIMA method.
Otvorena dozvola RH