Croatian Employment Service data for 2021 show that emigration remained below the 2019 level, while immigration in some counties exceeded pre-pandemic figures.

Along with the number of employed people significantly exceeding pre-crisis levels, one of the features of the labor market in Croatia for quite some time has also been a structural shortage of certain worker profiles. In such a situation, the focus on migration has also intensified, and the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) addressed the analysis of emigration and immigration by county, of both Croatian citizens and foreigners.

After reduced cross-border spatial mobility in all counties in the first year of the pandemic resulted in a decline in the number of both emigrated and immigrated domestic population, in 2021 migration in both directions increased in all counties. However, emigration mostly remained below the 2019 level, while immigration in some counties exceeded pre-pandemic figures.

Noticeably more favorable ratio

The ratio of emigrants to immigrants last year ranged from the most favorable 1.5:1 in Split-Dalmatia County to 3.9:1 in Međimurje County, for which this is actually a noticeable improvement compared with the previous several years when the ratio was around 5:1. In most counties, that ratio is noticeably more favorable today than, for example, in 2017, the year in which the highest number of citizens emigrated from Croatia since its accession to the EU. Five years ago, for every one “returnee” there were more than 10 emigrants in four Slavonian counties (Vukovar-Srijem, Brod-Posavina, Požega-Slavonia and Osijek-Baranja) as well as in Međimurje and Koprivnica-Križevci counties. For comparison, in the same year in Dubrovnik-Neretva County there was one immigrant for every two emigrants, and that same ratio was recorded last year as well. Compared with 2019 (when the ratio of emigrants and immigrants was practically equal), that county is also the only one in which a deterioration of the ratio was recorded.

Large differences in the external migration of Croatian citizens were influenced, among other things, by relatively large differences by county in average net wages of employees with completed secondary education. And although the range of unemployment rates today is noticeably smaller than in previous years, those differences too undoubtedly affected (greater or smaller) external migration in individual parts of Croatia in recent years. Finally, HZZ data show that a location on the Adriatic coast is also a factor influencing lower net emigration.

Most departures from Dubrovnik

At the same time, in recent times the external migration of foreigners has been attracting increasing attention. County-level data for last year show that only in Dubrovnik-Neretva County did more foreigners emigrate than immigrate (853 compared with 907), while most other Adriatic counties actually lead in higher immigration relative to emigration of foreigners. This group also includes the City of Zagreb with 6,532 foreign nationals immigrating last year versus 2,951 who emigrated from the Croatian capital.

In the HZZ analysis regarding these migrations, it is concluded that differences between counties in the relative number of immigrated foreigners are determined primarily by differences in the unemployment rate. An unemployment rate lower by, for example, 10 percentage points is associated with a ratio of the number of immigrated foreigners to the number of immigrated citizens higher by 2.8, they say. By contrast, differences in average net wages and geographic location do not affect the relative scope of immigration of foreigners. Differences in the unemployment rate explain, they say, more than three quarters of the differences in the relative number of immigrated foreigners. In short, foreigners come where the need for foreign labor is greater.

Source: poslovni.hr