OVI for August 2024: Strong drop in number of job advertisements in eastern Croatia
September 3, 2024
After the OVI index rose by 0.4 and 1.6 percent in June and July, in August the index fell on an annual level by -3.5 percent, which is the biggest drop since April of this year and the sixth decrease of the annual rate in 2024. The seasonally adjusted index value compared to the previous month fell both in July and in August, by -2.1 percent cumulatively. Considering that these are summer months, when the number of job advertisements is habitually lower, the third quarter usually records a decrease compared to the second quarter. We believe this will be the case this year as well, and judging by July and August, it could amount to approximately -1.2 percent, comparable to the same period a year earlier. A significant slowdown is visible in the original data as well, according to which the annual growth rate in the third quarter could be the lowest since the beginning of 2021, but we should wait for the data for September for a definite conclusion.
The five most sought-after occupations have remained the same compared to August 2023 (salesperson, waiter, warehouse worker, cook, and driver), but cooks and drivers switched places on the list. The largest drop among the most-sought after occupations was recorded for construction workers, who fell from 7th to 14th place, while demand grew the most for IT workers, medical doctors, and employees in finances, who rose from 18th, 22nd, and 24th place in August 2023 to 13th, 17th, and 19th place in August 2024. The biggest contribution to the job advertisement growth rate came from advertisements for clerks, bookkeepers, and salespersons, while the largest negative contribution came from advertisements for construction workers, drivers, car repair workers, waiters, telecommunications staff, and teachers.
The share of job advertisements requiring low and secondary level education fell mildly over the year, to 14.9 and 61.3 percent, while the share of job advertisements seeking higher levels of education increased to 23.8 percent. Adriatic regions recorded a growth in the number of job advertisements on an annual level, by 3.1 percent. At the same time, the number of job advertisements dropped strongly in eastern Croatia, by as much as 19 percent. More than half of the classified occupations recorded a drop in the number of job advertisements in eastern Croatia, with job advertisements for drivers, cooks, and construction workers dropping the most. A decrease in the number of job advertisements was also recorded in central Croatia, by a moderate -1.4 percent. However, considering that this region accounts for 59 percent of all job advertisements, the negative contribution to the total growth rate was as high as -0.9 percentage points. In central Croatia, job advertisements for waiters, construction workers, and telecommunications staff fell the most.
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.