What is the employment rate, what is the unemployment rate and what is the share of labour force in the working-age population? Responses to these questions, as well as to many other questions within the domain of labour force, have been provided, for as many as 26 years now, by the Labour Force Survey, the most comprehensive survey on labour market characteristics in the Republic of Croatia, which is conducted on the sample of randomly selected private households.
This Survey is aimed at collecting data on employed and unemployed persons that make the labour force, persons outside labour force (e.g., retired persons, students, housewives), as well as on their demographic, educational, socio-economic and other characteristics. In 2024, within the Labour Force Survey, persons aged from 15 to 34 years will be asked to provide responses to several additional questions, which cover the topic “Young people on the labour market”.
The Survey is carried out in line with the standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the methodology of the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), while the application of the uniform methodology guarantees the data comparability among countries, especially the EU Member States.
The Labour Force Survey is carried out continuously throughout the year - data are collected every week and released every three months. Each household selected in the sample will be interviewed in two consecutive quarters and, after a break of another two quarters, it will be interviewed again in another two consecutive quarters, i.e. it will be interviewed four times within a year and a half.
Interviewing is conducted by authorised interviewers of the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, either “face to face”, by using a laptop, or by a phone call from the CATI Centre. In an announcement letter, every selected household is informed beforehand on the interviewer’s visit or phone call. The announcement letter is accompanied by a flyer providing detailed information about the Survey. In 2022, around 18 thousand private households participated in the Survey, i.e. around 38 thousand persons aged 15 and more years who lived in those households.
The results of this Survey are very important in deciding on economic and social issues at the national and European level, and they are also used in creating and monitoring the policies and targets of employment, in scientific analyses and in informing broad public on the status and trends on the labour market in the Republic of Croatia.
The Official Statistics Act (OG, Nos 25/20 and 155/23) guarantees secrecy and anonymity of all information that the respondents provide on themselves and their household members. The collected data are used exclusively in aggregated form for official statistics purposes and do not disclose any information on household or person who participated in the survey.
The most recent Labour Force Survey results available as well as the information on the release dates of future results can be found on the link.
We would like to express our gratitude to all selected household, or the households to be selected in the future, for their participation.
