This has affected the labour force aggregate, which was 1.789 million in the first quarter of the year. Quarter on quarter, the size of the labour population decreased by 25,800 or 1.4%, while year on year it fell by 26,300 or 1.4%, which is the result of a relatively larger drop in the number of unemployed persons compared to a relatively smaller increase in the number of persons employed, analysts at Raiffeisenbank Austria (RBA) said in a report on Tuesday.
Preliminary figures show that the number of economically inactive people was 1.755 million in the first quarter of 2017, which was 21,000 or 1.2% more than in the previous quarter and 5,800 or 0.3% more than in the first quarter of 2016.
"As a result of these trends, the working-age population, aged 15 and over, has shrunk to a new record low of 3.553 million, confirming its continued decline since 2009," RBA said.
The size of the working-age population decreased by 5,000 compared with the fourth quarter of 2016 and by 4,900, or 0.1%, compared with the first quarter of 2016.
As a result, the activity rate in the first quarter of this year was 50.6%, an annual decline of 0.5 percentage points. At the same time, the unemployment rate was 14.1%, which was an increase of 0.7 percentage points compared with the previous quarter and a decrease of 1.2 percentage points compared with the first quarter of 2016.
"Although yet another excellent tourist (pre-)season will show an improvement in (un)employment indicators, the fact remains that structural weaknesses are still present on the Croatian labour market, including mismatches in labour supply and demand, low employment and an increased migration drain of young working-age population," RBA said.