When Croatia found itself in the crosshairs of the global financial crisis after 2008, and when domestic employers began to feel the decline in orders and revenues, they had to literally cut costs overnight and resorted to the most classic, risk-averse restructuring. Instead of seeking new business opportunities, offering new services or products, or entering new markets to increase revenues, they only knew how to cut costs, primarily by reducing the number of employees. They started with the ‘stars’, the most expensive employees, the managers they had brought in to launch the business, design new products and services, and enter new markets, and then they began shutting down entire departments. The larger the company, the longer the lists for ‘culling’ were. HR departments worked overtime trying to present layoffs as an opportunity for a new beginning, and such opportunities, at least in Croatia, were quite scarce for a long time because the crisis lasted longer here than in other European Union countries. In this week’s topic, Ksenija Puškarić learns why costs should not be cut by laying off the most expensive workers.
The French are (again) on the streets. Inflation, rising living costs, and fuel shortages have brought out around a hundred thousand Parisians, who are (so far) respectful of state and municipal property. The German Association of Cities and Municipalities has published an urgent inventory list for at least ten days that every household should stock up on in case of power, water, and fuel outages. Back in May, one retail chain limited the sale of oil to persons over 18 years old, allowing only two bottles per person. The main driving fuel of life in Europe, gas, has increased by more than 700 percent since the beginning of last year (so, it’s not all about the war!) and is currently the most important and sought-after commodity in the world. Experience shows that just five days without energy, electricity, and food is enough for cinematic chaos to erupt on the streets. However, even a glance at the recently shining democratic members of the Union suggests that we have stepped into, if not a wartime, then at least a pre-war state of the economy. Although the EU is technically not swimming in a wartime economy, several of its characteristics are still visible, writes Gordana Gelenčer in this week’s current topic.
At the end of October, it will be six months since Davor Filipović was appointed Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development. Energy prices have long since risen due to broken supply chains from the pandemic, and this professor from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb took on a rather challenging role at a time when Russia was already heavily engaged in war in Ukraine, and an even deeper crisis loomed due to the threat of halting Russian gas supplies to the European Union. Additionally, a major scandal erupted over the resale of INA’s gas, and various measures have been implemented to assist citizens and entrepreneurs. Minister Filipović has been practically elusive all this time, constantly busy, but after a month of ‘chasing’, we managed to ‘bring him in’ for a conversation about current topics such as interventions in energy and food prices, delays in energy projects, and finally untangling the management knot at INA. The minister was interviewed by Edis Felić.
