How is the labour market changing?

Overview of trends in the celebration of Labour Day

In everyday life, we often only notice work when something goes wrong: when a service is late, when a system suddenly stops, or when there is no one to do a task - it becomes clear how wide the network of jobs is that allows society to function. While everything goes on as it should, this work remains in the background and, because of this, is often not recognised enough. Therefore, Labour Day is an opportunity to make this invisible layer of everyday life visible.
 
Official statistics also play a vital role in this. They provide a framework for understanding work, transforming individual efforts into a clear picture of social trends. Statistics do not only show the number of employed persons or the unemployment rate; they help to understand the structure of jobs, changes in working conditions and broader trends that shape the labour market.
 
A special place in this system is held by the Labour Force Survey, a survey introduced into the statistical system of the Republic of Croatia in 1996. In three decades, this Survey has become a key source of internationally comparable data, harmonised with the Eurostat methodology, and a basis for understanding changes in employment, unemployment, and population activity.
 
The Survey data confirm that the labour market in Croatia has been moving in a positive direction in recent years. In 2025, there were 1.7 million employed persons, which is a figure that shows an increase compared to previous years and a continuation of the growth trend. Compared to the previous year, this number increased by 19 thousand, while at the same time the number of unemployed decreased by two thousand and, in 2025, amounted to 87 thousand.
 
In addition to noting the positive trend, it should also be pointed out that in 2025 the employment rate reached its highest level in history, and the unemployment rate reached its lowest level in history in Croatia. Namely, the employment rate for people aged 20 to 64 was 74.4%, which is an increase of 4.2 percentage points compared to 2022, while the unemployment rate fell by two percentage points compared to 2022, amounting to 4.5%.
 
If we compare this with Eurostat data, it is noticeable that Croatia is following positive European trends. In 2025, as many as 76.1% of people in the EU aged 20 to 64 were employed, which is the highest share recorded in the time series monitored since 2009.
 
Among EU Member States, the highest employment rates are in Malta (83.6%), the Netherlands (83.4%) and the Czech Republic (82.9%), and the lowest in Italy (67.6%), Romania (69.0%) and Greece (71.0%).
 
Data from the Labour Force Survey show that in Croatia, the growth of female employment is particularly notable; the employment rate in 2025 compared to 2022 increased by as much as 6.3 percentage points for women aged 20 to 64, reaching 71.8%, while for men it increased by 1.9 percentage points, reaching 76.8%, indicating an increasingly balanced participation in the labour market.
 
If we look at data at the European Union level for people aged 20 to 64, in 2025 in all countries except Lithuania, men had a higher employment rate than women, while the largest difference in the employment rate between men and women was recorded in Italy (19.1 percentage points), and the smallest in Estonia (0.5 percentage points).
 
If we return to the data from the Labour Force Survey, we note that changes are also visible in the age structure of employed persons. The increasing involvement of older people points to a longer working life and greater activity of older workers. The lower employment rate of young people aged 15 to 24 remains an area where there is room for improvement.
   
Changes are also visible in the educational structure of employed persons. Specifically, the share of highly educated employed persons is increasing, and the share of those with lower and secondary education is decreasing, which is an additional indicator that the educational structure of employed persons is changing, as well as the demands of the labour market.
 
And in which sectors did the largest number of employed persons work? According to the Labour Force Survey in 2025, the largest number of employed persons were in manufacturing (263 thousand) and wholesale and retail trade (238 thousand), while the health and social welfare sector achieved the largest growth in 2025 compared to 2022. More precisely, the number of employed persons increased from 120 thousand in 2022 to 142 thousand in 2025.

It should also be mentioned that the reconciliation of private and professional life is an increasingly important dimension of the quality of work, and data for 2025 show that in Croatia the average weekly working hours at the main job were 37.5 hours, which is 2.1 hours more than the European average. The longest working week - 39.5 hours - was worked by people in Greece, while the Dutch had the shortest working week with 30.3 hours.
   
Finally, let us emphasise that Labour Day is much more than a day off. It is true that we are all looking forward to it for that reason, but we must not forget that it is also a reminder that work is not just an economic category, and monitoring the labour market is not just an analytical task. Labour Day is an opportunity to recognise the value of that human right and need in all its forms, but also the importance of reliable data that makes that value visible.
 
Happy Labour Day!

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