OVI for February 2023: Increasing number of job advertisements seeking secondary level education

March 3, 2023

According to seasonally adjusted data, the OVI index recorded a 1 percent increase in February compared to the previous month, which is a significantly lower rate compared to January, when the index increased by 5 percent on a monthly level. On an annual level, the index increased by 1.2 percent compared to February last year, which is the lowest growth rate in the last two years and points to a mild deceleration. However, seasonally adjusted data for the first two months of this year indicate a moderate growth on a quarterly level in the first quarter of this year.

Salesperson, cook, and waiter are still the most sought-after occupations, although the number of job advertisements for waiters and cooks dropped in February on an annual level. The largest drop in the number of job advertisements in absolute terms on an annual level in February was recorded for programmers and cooks, while the highest increase was recorded for the occupations of salesperson, teacher, and driver. Compared to February 2022, the share of advertisements seeking secondary level education increased significantly (from 29.6 to 32.8 percent), while the share of those seeking lower levels of education fell from 10.7 to 10.3 percent. As in January, the share of advertisements offering permanent employment rose, from 43 to 45.3 percent, while the share of advertisements offering fixed-term employment decreased over the year, from 43.5 to 41.1 percent. With regard to geographical distribution of jobs, the number of job advertisements decreased only in eastern Croatia, and increased the most in the Adriatic regions, by 11.2 percent in the northern Adriatic and by 5.4 percent in the southern Adriatic. In the northern Adriatic, demand increased the most for the occupation of salesperson, but decreased the most for medical doctors and dentists. In the southern Adriatic, demand increased the most for salespersons, drivers, and teachers, while the number of job advertisements dropped the most for cooks and waiters. 

 

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.