Year on year, unemployment in May 2017 fell by 2.6% percentage points. In May 2016, it stood at 14.3%.
The monthly decrease was expected as 180,733 persons were registered with the Croatian Employment Service at the end of May 2017, down 11.5% on the month and 22.2% on the year.
Unemployment is likely to fall further in June as 170,852 persons are registered as jobless as of today, 9,881 fewer than at the end of May.
Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) analysts said the unemployment decrease to 11.7% in May was only partly owing to a rise in employment, which was strongly backed by seasonal employment, and that another reason was a decrease of the work force, itself a consequence of net migration drain.
Although unemployment is expected to further decrease and employment to mildly increase in the quarters ahead, the emigration of the most productive young population is likely to continue this year, undermining the potential of long term sustainable growth, RBA analysts said.
Another reason for such trends, aside from the easier flow of people on the single EU market, is the slow pace of job creation as well as the fact that jobs are often seasonal and based on fixed-term contracts.