OVI for 2020: Labor demand in 2020 drops 28 percent compared to 2019
January 12, 2021
OVI index for 2020 shows that labor demand in 2020 decreased 28 percent compared to 2019. Decrease in labor demand is a consequence of COVID-19 pandemic, as well as of social and economic restrictions aimed at curbing the pandemic. Demand for almost all occupations in 2020 dropped compared to 2019, particularly the demand for occupations in the service sector. For example, demand for three occupations that are traditionally most sought after – salesman, waiter, and cook – decreased in 2020 by 43, 44 and 35 percent respectively compared to 2019. On the other hand, occupations related to the pandemic and reconstruction efforts after the earthquake registered a growth in demand: there was a higher demand for bricklayers, nurses, professors, medical doctors, dentists, construction workers, teachers, carpenters and construction engineers in 2020 compared to 2019. In the fourth quarter of 2020, labor demand was 25 percent lower than in the fourth quarter of 2019, and the same decrease was registered when comparing labor demand in December 2020 compared to December 2019.
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 2015).The index is to be interpreted in such a way that the values greater than 100 represent growth when compared to 2015, and accordingly, that the values less than 100 represent a decrease with respect to the base year. Index is seasonally adjusted using the X-12-ARIMA method.