OVI for January 2023: Demand for seasonal workers begins in northern Adriatic

February 7, 2023

According to seasonally adjusted data, the OVI index recorded a 5.4 percent increase in January compared to the previous month, which is an improvement compared to December, when the index decreased by -2.5 percent on a monthly level. The growth is even more pronounced on an annual level because the recorded 10.1 percent compared to January last year, is a significantly higher growth rate than the one recorded in December last year, which amounted to 3 percent. After the index rose by 4.7 percent in the last quarter of 2022 compared to the previous quarter, seasonally adjusted data for January 2023 point to a probable growth on a quarterly level 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 were salesperson, cook, and bookkeeper, while waiters fell to fourth place, and warehouse workers came in fifth place. The largest drop in the number of job advertisements in absolute terms on an annual level in January was recorded for programmers and construction workers, while the highest increase was recorded for the occupations of salesperson, bookkeeper, and nurse. Compared to January 2022, the share of advertisements seeking secondary level education increased significantly (from 31.4 to 35.2 percent), as did those seeking lower levels of education (from 6.8 to 9.6 percent). In line with the current conditions on the Croatian labor market, the share of advertisements offering permanent employment rose from 45.3 to 46.0 percent, while the share of advertisements offering fixed-term employment also rose mildly over the year, from 46.3 to 46.8 percent. With regard to geographical distribution of jobs, the number of job advertisements increased in all Croatian regions, with the highest increase recorded in the northern Adriatic, by 44.2 percent, most likely indicating that this year’s search for seasonal workers has started earlier than usual. The Croatian inland recorded an increase in number of job advertisements, with eastern Croatia surprisingly in the lead with an annual growth rate of 17.4 percent. The highest positive contribution to the increase in number of job advertisements in eastern Croatia came from advertisements for cooks, salespersons, 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.