OVI for November 2023: Drop in foreign demand for workers
December 4, 2023
According to the seasonally adjusted data, the OVI index decreased in November by -2,8 percent compared to the previous month, which is the largest drop on a monthly level since June 2023. On an annual level, it also decreased, by -2.2 percent compared to November last year, which is the second lowest growth rate since February 2021, right after the -2.3 percent recorded in May this year. Even if the drop continues in December, we expect a growth in the annual index value in the fourth quarter. In the first 11 months of this year, the index rose by 3.7 percent in total compared to the previous period last year. Everything indicates that 2023 will be remembered as a year of labor demand growth, although significantly more moderate one compared to previous years.
Compared to November 2022, the occupations of salesperson, warehouse worker, bookkeeper, and waiter remained among the five most sought-after occupations, but drivers took over the fifth place from cooks. Unlike several previous months, the largest drop among the most sought-after occupations in November was not recorded for programmers, but for medical doctors and dentists, who fell from the 14th to the 22nd place, while demand grew the most for production workers, who rose from the 20th place in November 2022 to the 13th most sought-after occupation in November 2023. The biggest contribution to the job advertisement growth rate came from advertisements for salespersons, drivers, and warehouse workers, while the largest negative contribution came from advertisements for medical doctors/dentists and clerks.
The share of job advertisements seeking secondary level of education continues to rise; thus, in November, it rose by 3.6 percentage points to 62.3 percent, mainly at the expense of job advertisements requiring high levels of education, whose share fell by 2.6 percentage points to 23.6 percent. A growth trend can still be observed for job advertisements offering permanent employment, with their share in November amounting to 53.4 percent, 5.5 percentage points higher compared to November 2022. The biggest contribution to the drop in the number of job advertisements this time came from abroad, as the number of job advertisements in this category fell by -32.1 percent over the year. This was followed by the northern Adriatic (-6.2 percent) and eastern Croatia (-11.9 percent). A positive contribution came from the southern Adriatic, with an annual growth rate of 5.1 percent, and central Croatia, with 1.6 percent. Although the growth rate in central Croatia was low, considering that 63 percent of job advertisements belonged to this region, positive contribution to the total index was as high as 1 percentage point. The biggest contribution to the job advertisement growth rate in central Croatia came from the advertisements for salespersons, warehouse workers, and drivers, while the largest negative contribution from the advertisements from abroad came from the advertisements for electrical technicians, construction workers, 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.