Croatia has experienced an impressive labour market recovery over the last decade, with unemployment rates having declined nearly by a factor of three since 2013, but major challenges remain (see Chapter 2): labour force participation has risen substantially but is still low in international comparison, with ample scope to boost employment particularly for young people, older workers and disadvantaged groups; employment growth has occurred disproportionately in lower-skilled occupations, which explains the sluggish growth in labour productivity and wages; the sharp rise in temporary work during the recovery has been reversed, but still a disproportionate share of workers are employed on very short contracts; and undeclared work appears to be relatively widespread in Croatia, even if a precise assessment of its incidence is very difficult. In the context of a declining and ageing population, a shrinking workforce, and high emigration, it is essential that Croatia extend working lives and improve the employment of workers at the margin of the labour market, invest in the upskilling of its workforce to raise productivity and wages, and further improve job quality.
OECD Reviews of Labour Market and Social Policies: Croatia 2025
Croatia carried out a series of changes to its labour market legislation in 2022 that address some of the challenges outlined in Chapter 2. These legislative changes have included:
A comprehensive set of amendments to the Labour Act, passed in December 2022 following years of discussions. These changes transpose the two EU Directives on Work‑life Balance and on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions into Croatian legislation, and brought a series of additional important changes, including restrictions of the use of consecutive fixed-term contracts and innovative provisions regulating work carried out via digital platforms.1 Most of these changes entered into force in January 2023.
A new Act on the Elimination of Undeclared Work, which sets out new rules aimed at tackling unregistered employment as well as the non‑payment of salaries, salary add-ons, and social insurance contributions, and which equally entered into force in January 2023.
An amendment to the Minimum Wage Act, which strengthens the statutory minimum wage by excluding certain wage components from its calculation basis and permitting the State Inspectorate to sanction employers who fail to abide to collectively agreed wages.
3.1.1. Croatia substantially restricted the use of fixed-term contracts
Among the recent amendments made to the Croatian Labour Act to tighten the regulation of fixed-term contracts, an important one addresses concerns about the steep rise in temporary employment during the initial years of Croatia’s labour market recovery (see Chapter 2). This trend towards temporary work had been favoured by hitherto very liberal regulation in Croatia, which foresaw no limit to the number of short contracts that an employer could give to a worker for a period of up to three years. While the proponents of this rule pointed to the need for flexibility in Croatia’s tourism industry, it led to an excessive use of fixed-term contracts across Croatia’s economy, including in the form of “chained” one‑month contracts.
The amendment tackles such excessive practices by restricting the maximum number of successive fixed-term contracts and tying the use of fixed-term contracts to clearer criteria. Under the new legislation, no more than three successive fixed-term contracts are permitted over a three‑year period; any interruption of below three months in between two contracts is disregarded in defining this period. Moreover, the employer now needs to justify the use of fixed-term contracts by a concrete business need, such as having to replace a temporarily absent worker or having to carry out time‑limited work within a certain deadline. Those restrictions are likely to effectively curb the excessive use of very short contracts. Meanwhile, the tightening labour market may contribute to reducing the incidence of temporary work more broadly by improving workers’ bargaining position vis-à-vis employers.
3.1.2. Other legislative changes have focussed on regulating platform work and increasing the penalties for undeclared work
In a second notable amendment to the Labour Act, which may serve as an interesting example for many OECD Member countries, Croatia introduced far-reaching new regulations of platform work. Recognising the shortcomings of existing labour legislation in dealing with work carried out through digital labour platforms, and in anticipation of an EU Platform Work Directive, Croatia introduced a set of new provisions that extensively regulate platform work and introduce comprehensive data collection and exchange procedures. The amendment foresees, among other things, the mandatory registration of all digital labour platforms and intermediaries, such as food delivery and ridesharing platforms; regulations on the mandatory content of employment contracts; and the collection of personal data of everyone working through a digital platform, their hours worked and any financial transactions made, and the transmission of these data to financial and social security authorities. These changes are intended to enable supervision of the working conditions of platform workers, notably working hours and compliance with minimum-wage legislation, the identification of fake self‑employment, and more systematic controls of work permits of third-country nationals. Digital labour platforms will be liable for the payment of salaries to the workers employed through intermediaries, except if they undertake certain statutorily defined actions, such as requesting monthly delivery of pay slips and confirmations on no outstanding tax debts. As a step towards the technical implementation of this amendment Croatia introduced the Unified Electronic Labour Records (JEER) system in January 2024.2
Croatia also stepped up the fight against undeclared work with the adoption of the new Act on the Elimination of Undeclared Work. Besides clarifying the definition of undeclared work, the legislative change increases penalties for employers who do not declare their workers while introducing at the same time a compensation to workers for the hours worked that went undeclared. Before the change, in case of detection of undeclared work, employers had only been charged with misdemeanour and fined and workers generally been registered “as of yesterday”. The new rules instead rest on the assumption that the unregistered work relationship already lasted for six months (except if there is evidence to the contrary), and employers are required to pay workers the full wages plus social insurance contributions for those six months. This puts the blame for not declaring work squarely on the employer and raises the (previously low) cost employers face in case of detection. At the same time, it strengthens workers’ position and increases their incentives to report undeclared work, though proof of undeclared hours is typically difficult to provide. The new law also strengthened data collection to detect and discourage undeclared work: companies in certain sectors need to register their employees’ working hours through the new Unified Electronic Labour Records system. The State Inspectorate, which is responsible for detecting undeclared work, will publish the results of their controls in the form of white‑ and blacklists. Employers who are repeatedly found guilty of undeclared work within a period of six years see their fines doubled and may find themselves temporarily banned from being active in a certain sector. These legislative changes are part of a larger package of measures foreseen in Croatia’s National Programme for Tackling Undeclared Work, which also includes campaigns to change the public view on informality, notably among high school students.
In the context low employment rates, sluggish productivity and wage growth, and a shrinking workforce, policies to promote workforce training, upskilling and reskilling must be a policy priority for Croatia. This includes ensuring that every young person enters the labour market with a qualification and with skills that are sought after in the labour market and that give access to a quality job. It also means providing adult workers – both employed and unemployed – with relevant and attractive training options that increase their productivity and help them adapt to changing labour market needs.
3.2.1. Vocational education and training play an important role in Croatia but often fail to equip young people with relevant labour market skills
Many young people in Croatia acquire their education and skills through the vocational education and training (VET) system, which is a cornerstone of upper-secondary education in Croatia (OECD, 2025[1]). Participation rates in initial VET are among the highest across European countries, with 70.6% of all upper‑secondary students having chosen a vocational programme in 2023 (Eurostat, 2025[2]). This is higher even than in the countries renowned for their dual VET programmes such as Austria (68.9%), Switzerland (61%) and Germany (47.2%). About two‑in-three vocational upper-secondary students in Croatia participate in four‑year programmes that enable progression to tertiary education, and more than half of VET graduates from these programmes indeed continue to higher education (Cedefop, 2022[3]). One consequence of high participation in initial VET in Croatia is that early school leaving rates are very low: the share of 18‑24 year‑olds in Croatia without an upper-secondary qualification is the lowest across all EU countries, at only 2% in 2024 (EU average of 9.3%; Eurostat (2025[4])).
However, Croatia’s upper-secondary VET programmes are poorly aligned with the needs of a changing labour market and often fail to equip young people with relevant practical skills. Nearly all four‑year VET programmes are school-based, with work-based learning components accounting for typically only a very small share of total training (Cedefop, 2022[3]).3 And while all three‑year VET programmes have a work‑based learning component, and apprenticeship programmes exist in crafts and trades (JMO), overall enrolment in these programmes has been declining to only around 19%.4 The social partners are involved little in the design and implementation of the school-based programmes, training curricula are outdated, and the contents and quality of work-based training is neither regulated nor systematically assessed. Despite high participation rates these programmes are therefore generally perceived as rather unattractive. Moreover, there is no systematic link between the training programmes offered and local skill needs. Particularly young people growing up in more rural parts of Croatia often need to choose from a very limited set of vocational training options that may not suit their interests and for which there is not much local labour demand. All these factors contribute to why many young people in Croatia struggle to find work after graduation, end up working in low-skilled jobs, or leave the country.
Croatia has invested significant efforts in recent years into modernising its VET system (OECD, 2025[1]). The strategic goal has been to improve the alignment of the education system with the labour market, move to a system that focusses on learning outcomes, and strengthen work‑based learning. A 2019 project for the modernisation of the VET system, funded through the European Social Fund (ESF/ESF+), has aimed to improve the quality and relevance of VET through a revision of VET curricula in line with labour market needs and the Croatian Qualifications Framework, an expansion of work-based learning, and new teaching materials. A 2022 amendment to the Vocational Education and Training Act included new provisions aimed at clarifying the definition of work-based training, better connecting schools and employers, and supervising the quality of work-based training provided by employers.
3.2.2. Participation in adult learning is very low, but a recent voucher-based training system has experienced substantial uptake
Despite Croatia’s need to reskill and upskill its workforce, participation in adult learning is very low. In 2024, only about 6.6% of adults in Croatia reported having participated in formal or non-formal education and training activities in the last four weeks, one of the lowest rates cross European countries (Figure 3.1). As in most countries, participation in adult learning tends to be lowest among those who likely need training most, with only around 0.6% of low-educated workers participating. Participation rates are also much lower for older workers, and they are only half as high in Northern and Pannonian Croatia as in Zagreb. When asked about the principal obstacles to training participation, workers referred to the cost of training and scheduling difficulties, though these results date back to 2016 (OECD, 2023[5]). Croatia introduced a new Adult Education Act in 2022 that established a framework for quality assurance in adult education, increased transparency for participants, and requires training institutions to harmonise training programmes with the Croatian Qualifications Framework.
Adult participation in formal and/or non-formal education in the previous 4 weeks, ages 25‑64, 2024
Note: Low-educated are those with a below upper secondary educational attainment based on ISCED 2011. Low-educated data for Croatia refer to 2023. For Croatia and Lithuania, they are also not fully reliable.
Source: Eurostat (2025), Participation rate in education and training (last 4 weeks) by educational attainment level (dataset), https://doi.org/10.2908/TRNG_LFSE_03 (accessed 11 August 2025).
Besides this legislative change, a new voucher system, financed under Croatia’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), has been the main instrument for promoting adult learning and upskilling. In operation since April 2022, this voucher system permits both employed and unemployed workers to participate in trainings offered through accredited training institutions. The training catalogue focusses on the acquisition of micro‑qualifications and partial qualifications in areas related to the digital and green transition. The maximum training duration is ten months for programmes at secondary level and 12 months for programmes at tertiary level. The system is administered by the CES, who processes applications and grants the vouchers. Applicants can submit their request for a voucher digitally via a mobile‑phone application, through which they can also request professional guidance, without having to visit CES premises. Training participants are requested to fill in an evaluation of their training programme and provider upon completion of the training and six months after. For employed training participants, also the employers receive a questionnaire to assess the training’s effectiveness in improving the employee’s skills and work performance.
The initial uptake of the new voucher system has been very encouraging, even if its limited size and scope imply that more substantial efforts are needed to effectively upskill Croatia’s workforce. According to current targets, the programme will cover 40 000 participants by mid-2026, 12 000 of whom should be long-term unemployed, inactive people or NEETs. About 11 000 vouchers were approved within the first year, 80% of which for digital training. Given Croatia’s total active population of about 1.8 million people, and about 128 000 unemployed workers, those efforts can of course only be a first step. Moreover, the new voucher system seems to attract interest primarily from more educated workers: about 70% of initial programme participants are employed and a majority tertiary educated. The most popular training programmes including internet marketing and branding, front-end development, graphic design / digital publishing specialist, but also teaching assistant and personal assistant.
In light of the positive first results of the new voucher system, and considering its previous limitations, the Croatian Government substantially extended the programme in May 2023 with support from the ESF+. Under this new phase, the programme is being broadened beyond digital and green skills to other types of trainings and will cover an additional 75 000 users by the end of 2029.
Croatia provides employment support through the CES with its one central, 22 regional, 99 local offices. The CES’ primary functions include administering unemployment benefits for jobseekers, implementing active labour market programmes (ALMPs), and providing vocational guidance and counselling. CES support is available to jobseekers and employed workers alike, and only a minority of currently registered jobseekers – about 25% to 30% – receive unemployment benefits. Recipients of Croatia’s primary minimum-income benefit, the Guaranteed Minimum Benefit (GMB), need to register with the CES as jobseekers if they are out of work and have at least partial work capacity. For details on the design and coverage of out-of-work benefits in Croatia, see Section 5.1.
3.3.1. Resources for supporting jobseekers have risen as expenditures increased even while jobseeker numbers plummeted
Croatia’s spending on ALMPs is comparable to that of many OECD countries. In 2019, prior to the COVID‑19 crisis, Croatia dedicated a little less than 0.5% of its GDP to ALMPs. This was in line with the average spending across OECD countries and in neighbouring Hungary (0.4% and 0.6% respectively) and well above the 0.2% of GDP spent by neighbouring Slovenia (Figure 3.2, Panel A). ALMP spending levels as a share of GDP had remained broadly stable since 2015, which, in the context of rapidly declining unemployment, implies a very substantial increase in the resources available per jobseeker (Figure 3.2, Panel B). In line with these trends the CES also saw an increase in staff numbers over time, by 23% in 2022 relative to 2013 (+12% in the number of counsellors). Meaningful comparisons of ALMP spending for the year 2021 – the latest year for which cross-country data are currently available – are more difficult to draw, because of exceptional spending increases, and still depressed GDP, in some countries due to the COVID‑19 crisis. In Croatia, ALMP spending rose to 0.62% of GDP in 2021, compared to an OECD average of 0.44%, reflecting mainly higher spending on direct job creation.
ALMP: Active Labour Market Policy. PES: Public Employment Service. GDP: Gross Domestic Product.
Note: OECD give the unweighted average across 35 member countries for which data are available shown in Panel A. Data refer to 2020 instead of 2021 for Romania. The value for employment incentives excludes category 4.2 (Employment maintenance incentives) to remove to the extent possible measures specifically related to the COVID‑19 crisis.
Source: OECD (2025), Labour Market Programmes (dataset), https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/30f and OECD (2025), Employment and unemployment by five‑year age group and sex – indicators (dataset), https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/30g (accessed 10 November 2025).
EU funds have been playing a key role in financing employment support to jobseekers in Croatia. In 2025, a little over two‑thirds (69%) of the total funds dispersed for ALMPs are financed through allocations from the ESF+. Additional spending is financed through Croatia’s RRP. The remaining allocation comes from state budget, as Croatia abolished its employment insurance contributions in 2019.
3.3.2. As labour markets have gotten tighter, the CES has started shifting the focus on supporting the hardest‑to‑employ
Subsidies for (self-)employment and direct job creation have been the CES’ preferred tools for moving jobseekers into work and have accounted for the bulk of ALMP spending in recent years (Figure 3.2, Panel B). In 2021, the last year for which internationally comparable data are available, support for jobseekers who planned to start their own business was the single largest ALMP expenditure item in Croatia. Other important programmes were the Make‑a-Wish job creation programme for women who are above 50 years or hard to place (see Chapter 5), and hiring subsidies for jobseekers, including those without any work experience. This mix of measures reflects that Croatia was still coming out of a high‑unemployment environment at that time, in which subsidies can be an effective tool for creating additional job opportunities.
As Croatia’s labour market has been rapidly improving, the CES has been taking steps to adjust its programme mix to prioritise activation and support for the most disadvantaged. According to CES data, which however are not fully comparable to the cross-country expenditure data shown in Figure 3.2, education and training was the most important ALMP category in terms of participant numbers in 2022, accounting for 29% of new programme participations. This reflects the introduction of the new voucher‑based training system, but also a new comprehensive programme targeted at the most disadvantaged jobseekers – long-term unemployed, jobseekers without an upper-secondary degree, and GMB recipients – under the name of Job+. This programme, launched in early 2023, provides participants with a sequence of activation, individualised support with work practice (e.g. in a caring facility), followed by education and training, over a total programme duration of 12 or 24 months.5 Participants sign a personalised integration plan, and they are continuously monitored and supported by an employment counsellor and potentially a social mentor (if they are GMB recipients). Self‑employment and employment subsidies still accounted for 20% and 16% of programme inflows, including three new measures to subsidise self‑employment, employment and internships in the green and digital sectors, again co-financed under the RRP. With their focus on bringing jobseekers into green and digital jobs, these latter programmes will likely benefit primarily more educated jobseekers, who however may need less support in Croatia’s increasingly tight labour market.
Strong social dialogue and collective bargaining have an important role to play in raising employment, increasing job quality, and improving the skills and productivity of the Croatian workforce.
3.4.1. Tripartite dialogue has a solid institutional basis, but its quality is mixed
The Croatian social partners discuss important economic and social issues with government representatives in the Economic and Social Council (ESC), which was established through the Labour Act in 2000. As the key national-level tripartite body, the ESC is supposed to meet monthly under participation of ministers or their state secretaries and serves as a consultative and advisory body to the government. Further tripartite and bipartite social councils exist at sectoral level, as well as economic and social councils at county level (Tomić et al., 2019[6]). At the start of each year, the government submits a list of planned legislative initiatives to the ESC giving the social partners the opportunity to indicate which issues they would like to see discussed.
While this institutional framework for involving the social partners in policymaking processes is fundamentally solid, also compared to some peer OECD countries, the day‑to-day quality of tripartite dialogue is rather mixed. The government generally involves the social partners in important legislative processes, often from a relatively early stage. The social partners also indicated that the Ministry of Labour in particular tries to ensure regular high-level participation in the ESC, often through the minister. Nonetheless, during the OECD fact-finding mission, the union representatives expressed their frustration with the working of the ESC, criticising the growing irregularity of meetings and insufficient or late information flows. Some academic experts on social dialogue have suggested that the effectiveness of the ESC, and hence of tripartite dialogue, could be improved by revising the ESC’s mandate and the broader rules of the tripartite dialogue. This could include, for example, clarifying the primary focus areas of the ESC outside of labour market and social policy (e.g. on specific issues of health, migration or taxation); better specifying the procedures for ESC involvement in these areas, including the regularity and composition of meetings and the timelines for information transmission; and defining in which areas, or under what circumstances, the social partners have the right to participate in legislative working groups and parliamentary committees.
3.4.2. Collective bargaining coverage is in line with peer OECD countries but should rise according to new EU requirements
Many workers in Croatia are currently not represented through collective bargaining. A new e‑database of collective agreements currently counts 647 valid collective agreements in Croatia and estimates the coverage rate to be about 65% (Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy, 2025[7]). This number is substantially higher than earlier estimates provided by the ministry (47%, estimated based on 580 collective agreements signed between 2015 and 2021) and in a study by Tomić et al. (53% in 2013 and 61% 2009 (2019[6])). It puts Croatia’s collective bargaining coverage above the rates observed in most Central and Eastern European OECD countries, with the exception of Slovenia, but it is much below the levels in other parts of Europe (OECD, 2019[8]). Official figures about trade union density are also lacking: according to ILO data, about one‑in-five (21%) workers in Croatia were members of a trade union in 2018, again a slightly higher rate than in most Central and Eastern European OECD countries.
Collective bargaining in Croatia usually takes place at the company level, though there exist 12 sectoral‑level agreements, including in public services and the state administration. Coverage rates therefore vary widely: coverage is complete in construction and hospitality, where the existing sectoral‑level agreements extend by the general labour law to all employees; in the energy supply sector and in education, where unions are strong, coverage rates surpass 80%. By contrast, only around 25‑35% of workers in the industrial sector are covered by collective agreements, and coverage in some other sectors, including in retail, is close to zero. While trade unions in Croatia have been trying to push for negotiations at sectoral level, including in retail, employers have generally shown little interest in bringing such negotiation to fruition and in many cases slowed down bargaining processes. In some cases, the social partners have explicitly excluded wage discussions from the bargaining process and only focussed on less controversial topics, such as holiday bonuses. Another challenge for collective bargaining in Croatia is that the trade union landscape is fragmented, with unions in the same sector or company often disagreeing on their demands and on who has the right to negotiate. The 2014 Law on Representativeness of Trade Unions partly addressed this issue by clarifying thresholds for representativeness and hence encouraging mergers and alliances between smaller unions. However, a recent exception made for the small but influential doctors’ union has been causing controversy and risks undermining the current framework.
In line with the EU 2022 Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages, Croatia, as an EU Member State with a collective bargaining coverage below 80%, will have to develop an action plan that sets out a clear timeline and concrete measures to progressively increase the collective bargaining coverage rate. A working group tasked with drafting the proposal for a corresponding action plan was established in June 2023, including representatives of the social partners. To improve data collection, the recently amended Labour Act includes a new provision requiring employers, since July 2023, to report all collective agreements to the ministry. An electronic registration system was introduced in September 2025, and data on collective agreements are made publicly available. A priority for the Croatian Government and the social partners when drafting the action plan should be to ensure that forthcoming collective agreements cover all important areas of labour relationships, including workers’ pay and working conditions. The action plan could also include provisions for improved data collection on social dialogue and collective bargaining, including statistics on trade union membership and strikes.
3.4.3. Croatia has significantly increased the statutory minimum wage as its labour market tightened
Croatia has had a statutory, national-level minimum wage in place since 2008, which – since 2018 – is set annually through government decree.6 A single rate applies to all workers, except in the construction and hospitality sectors where the extended collective agreements foresee higher minimum wages for all employees depending on job complexity. The Croatian Government determines the minimum wage annually after consultations with the social partners taking into account the non-binding recommendation of an expert commission composed of trade union and employer representatives, government representatives and academic researchers.
Croatia’s minimum wage has long been relatively low but rose significantly over the last few years. In the initial years of the labour market recovery from the global financial crisis, in times of still high unemployment, Croatia kept its minimum wage stable relative to the average wage, at around 42% (Figure 3.3, Panel A). For a single person earning the minimum wage, this implied an income after taxes and transfers only a little above the poverty threshold (see Figure 5.4 in the section on working-age benefits). As the labour market tightened, and after introduction of the current Minimum Wage Act in 2018, Croatia started rapidly raising its minimum wage, by over 50% in nominal terms over five years. Since January 2025, the gross minimum wage stands at EUR 970 per month – around the threshold of 50% of the average wage, one of the suggested reference values to assess minimum-wage adequacy in the EU 2022 Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages.7 In an amendment to the Minimum Wage Act, adopted in late 2021, Croatia moreover increased transparency and strengthened enforcement of the minimum wage: various wage supplements are now excluded from the minimum wage; workers are prohibited from renouncing the minimum wage; and the State Inspectorate received the competence to sanction employers who do not abide to collectively agreed minimum wages.
After these increases, Croatia’s minimum wage is broadly in line with minimum wages in peer OECD countries. In 2024, Croatia’s minimum wage stood at 47% of the median wage, a rate broadly comparable to that in neighbouring Hungary (50%), though lower than in Slovenia (61%) and in the OECD on average (56%; Figure 3.3, Panel B). The minimum wage in Croatia is higher than in most OECD countries relative to output per hour worked (OECD, 2023[5]), a consequence of Croatia’s low labour productivity (see discussion in Section 2.2).
Note: Panel A. Minimum and average wages pre‑2023 have been converted from Kuna to Euros at the rate of EUR 1 = HRK 7.5345. Wages have not been adjusted for inflation. Net wages are after taxes and transfers for a single person working full-time. Panel B: average monthly minimum wage of full-time workers. The OECD is an unweighted average of the 30 countries with statutory and national minimum wages.
Source: OECD (2025) tax-benefit model, version 2.7.1 (http://oe.cd/TaxBEN) (Panel A) and (OECD (2025), Minimum relative to average wages of full-time workers (dataset), https://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/30h (Panel B), (accessed 30 August 2025).
References
[3] Cedefop (2022), Vocational education and training in Europe - Croatia: system description, https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/vet-in-europe/systems/croatia-u2.
[4] Eurostat (2025), “Early leavers from education and training by sex and labour status”, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/EDAT_LFSE_14/default/table?lang=en.
[2] Eurostat (2025), “Pupils enrolled in upper-secondary education by programme orientation, sex and age”, https://doi.org/10.2908/EDUC_UOE_ENRS05.
[7] Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy (2025), “Kolektivni ugovori”, https://kolektivni.gov.hr/#/contracts.
[1] OECD (2025), Education and Skills in Croatia, Reviews of National Policies for Education, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/bace00c4-en.
[5] OECD (2023), OECD Economic Surveys: Croatia 2023, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/4f945053-en.
[8] OECD (2019), Negotiating Our Way Up: Collective Bargaining in a Changing World of Work, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1fd2da34-en.
[6] Tomić, I. et al. (2019), “The employment and social situation in Croatia”, Study for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies, https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:213:562251.
← 1. Other changes include a flexibilisation of the rules for additional work that an employee working full-time for one employer carries out for another employer, new rules on probationary work, and the introduction of permanent seasonal jobs with an open-ended contract and the option of working outside the season.
← 2. The JEER is a data exchange system that registers digital labour platforms and aggregators, records the work performed via digital labour platforms, and permits data processing and review by the Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy, the State Inspectorate, the Ministry of Finance, and the Tax Administration.
← 3. For example, according to the national curriculum the four‑year VET programmes include on average a work-based learning part of less than 10%.
← 4. From 2018/19, the Ministry of Science and Education trialled, in collaboration with Swiss authorities, a dual vocational education programme, which involved a modernisation of VET curricula in six professions and increased provision of work-based training in participating companies. However, the experiment ended in 2020 with mixed results.
← 5. Job+ builds up on an existing programme referred to as “Activation”, which has existed since 2018. It provides profiling and individualised support for disadvantaged jobseekers, notably the long-term unemployed, with the aim of connecting them to a standard employment measure that eventually helps them move on into training or employment.
← 6. Croatia’s first Minimum Wage Act was introduced in 2008, with the amount of the minimum wage set to 36% of the 2007 average gross wage and adjusted annually with the real GDP growth rate. In 2013, a new Minimum Wage Act introduced the provision that the minimum wage is set by government decree. The current Minimum Wage Act was introduced in 2018.
← 7. Article 5.4 of Directive (EU) 2022/41 of the European Parliament and of the Council states that “Member States shall use indicative reference values to guide their assessment of adequacy of statutory minimum wages. To that end, they may use indicative reference values commonly used at international level such as 60% of the gross median wage and 50% of the gross average wage, and/or indicative reference values used at national level.”