OVI for January 2019: Decrease in labor demand in eastern Croatia

February 5, 2019

In the first month of 2019, OVI rose by merely 0.9 percent compared to the same month of the previous year, while the average index value in the last 12 months points to a growth in labor demand on an annual level of 22.4 percent. On the other hand, after last month’s drop of nearly 9 percent, seasonally adjusted index values indicate a mild growth in labor demand on a monthly level, considering that OVI rose by 3.5 percent in January compared to December 2018. However, the index trend values have been indicating a mild decrease in labor demand on a monthly level since June of last year. Whether or not this trend is temporary remains to be seen in the upcoming months when a somewhat stronger demand is expected for seasonal workers.
 
The five most sought-after occupations, which accounted for nearly a third of all job advertisements in January, included sales assistants, waiters, cooks, programmers, and bookkeepers, respectively, which means that compared to the month before, programmers replaced teachers on the list, while the demand for bookkeepers compared to December fell from second to fifth place. At the same time, when compared to December, labor demand grew in all regions except eastern Croatia, while compared to January of last year, the number of job advertisements was lower both in eastern Croatia and in the northern Adriatic.
 
Although it contributed with just 4.3 percent to the total number of job advertisements in January, eastern Croatia contributed to the 0.9 percent total growth in labor demand on an annual level with -2.2 percentage points, while the contribution of the northern Adriatic—which accounted for 11.6 percent of the total number of job advertisements—was -1.2 percentage points. On the other hand, northern Croatia, which accounted for 65.1 percent of the total number of job advertisements, contributed to the growth in the number of job advertisements on an annual level with 4.3 percentage points, while the southern Adriatic (accounting for 14.5 percent) contributed to it with 1.2 percentage points. The largest contribution to the decrease in the number of job advertisements on an annual level in eastern Croatia came from advertisements for the occupation in highest demand, i.e., sales assistant, while the occupation second-in-demand, i.e., teacher, provided a positive contribution to the annual growth rate. The top five occupations in demand in eastern Croatia in January also included waiters, construction workers, and drivers, although demand for the latter two also decreased compared to January 2018.

 

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.