According to figures the Bureau has released, the survey unemployment rate in the first and second half of last year was 13.8 percent, while the rates of the registered unemployment were 18.4 percent in the first half and 17.7 percent in the second half of 2004.
There were 304,000 people on the dole in the Central Employment Office in the July-December period of 2004, and the survey conducted according to ILO measures shows that there were 246,000 jobless Croatians in that period.
The total number of the jobless went down in the second half in comparison to the first half of last year when there were 253,000 unemployed persons. However, the total number of the working-age population decreased as well as the number of the economically active population and the number of the employed, while the number of the economically inactive people went up.
For instance, the number of the working-age Croatians (above 15) fell by 11,000 to 3.58 million in the second half of 2004 as against the first half..
The number of the active population (that includes both the employed and the unemployed) felly by 47,000 to 1.789 million with an increase of 35,000 to 1.795 million of inactive citizens.
In the structure of the active population, the number of the employed decreased by 41,000 to 1.542 million.
The ILO defines unemployed persons as all those who are without a job at the time the survey is conducted and who are able to start work within the next fortnight and have actively looked for work in the last four weeks or have recently found a job and are waiting to start.