engleski

Regional labour market differences in Croatia : can LFS data provide a clearer picture?

In Croatia, there are noticeable differences in regional labour market indicators. Some regions are persistently experiencing high unemployment rates. There is a diversity in regional economic activities which strongly influences the labour market. One example is tourism, activity predominately located at the Croatian coast, which generates strong seasonal patterns in the labour market demand. However, non-seasonal geographical labour mobility is not high in Croatia. Due to the low geographical mobility, regional labour markets have difficulties in promptly reacting to demand or supply changes. In addition, the labour market in Croatia is burdened by other landmarks of a labour market in transition economy – there is still inadequate matching between the structure of the two slow adapting labour supply and rapidly changing labour demand, labour market contracts tend to be inflexible (in terms of inherited rigidities) or in some cases too flexible (in small private firms where there are difficulties in labour law enforcement), there is still large unofficial sector which complements the income coming from regular employment relationship. Using the data from the Labour Force Survey for several consecutive years, the interaction between different labour market indicators is analysed, not previously investigated on the regional level in Croatian case. The goal of the analysis is to provide the basic information on the characteristics of the labour force in particular region (economic activity, education, unemployment, long-term unemployment, wages, working hours, etc.), and to interrelate those characteristics to provide more complete insight into the question why are some regions constantly lagging behind others.

labour market; regions; mobility

nije evidentirano