OVI index
OVI for January 2025: Labor demand drops in January
February 5, 2025
After two consecutive months of growth in the annual index rate, in January OVI recorded a decrease of -3.4 percent compared to January last year. Seasonally adjusted figures also point to an unfavorable monthly dynamic, because after a 0.9 percent growth in the last quarter of 2024 (measured in comparison to the third quarter), in January the index recorded a decrease of -4.9 percent compared to December last year. This is the largest drop on a monthly level since November 2023, reflecting a continued consolidation that marked the previous year. Judging by the seasonally adjusted data for January 2025, growth on a quarterly level should slow down additionally in the first quarter of this year, although a more reliable assessment cannot be made before the data for February become available.
The most sought-after occupations in January were salesperson, warehouse worker, cook, bookkeeper, and waiter, same as a year ago, the only difference being that warehouse workers and cooks switched places. The highest positive contribution to the job advertisement growth rate came from advertisements for medical doctors/dentists, salespersons, and cleaners, while the biggest negative contribution came from advertisements for bookkeepers, cooks, repair workers, production workers, and marketing workers. The largest drop among the most sought-after occupations over the year was recorded for production workers, who fell by seven places, while pharmacists and cleaners rose the most, by five places. Compared to January 2024, the share of job advertisements seeking workers with secondary level of education decreased mildly (from 62.4 to 60.8 percent), while the share of advertisements requiring low and high levels of education rose by 0.4 and 1.3 percentage points, respectively. The growth trend for the share of job advertisements offering permanent employment continued in January (rising from 53.2 to 58.5 percent), while the share of advertisements offering fixed-term employment fell significantly over the year, from 40.7 to 36.6 percent. The number of job advertisements rose in the Adriatic counties, by 8.1 percent on an annual level, while eastern and central Croatia recorded a negative contribution of as much as -4.5 percentage points. Central Croatia recorded an annual rate of decline of -4.5 percent, with the highest contribution coming from job advertisements for bookkeepers, repair workers, and production workers.
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