Job Demand Decreased by 5.4 Percent Year-on-Year: Salesperson Remains the Most In-Demand Occupation

The Online Vacancy Index (OVI) fell by 5.4 percent in April, marking the fourth consecutive month of year-on-year decline, while it increased by 1.3 percent compared to March, reported the Economic Institute, Zagreb (EIZ) on Friday.

– The OVI index has recorded a year-on-year decline for the fourth consecutive month, down 5.4 percent compared to April last year, which is a slowdown from the 8.4 percent decline recorded in March. Seasonally adjusted values indicate that job demand increased by 1.3 percent compared to the previous month, but since the beginning of this year, the index has overall decreased by 2.7 percent – stated on the EIZ website.

Given that the second quarter has just begun, EIZ analysts note that it is necessary to wait for at least the May data to comment with greater certainty on the signals from the labor market and their impact on the growth rate of real GDP.

Salesperson Remains the Most In-Demand Occupation

The top five most sought-after occupations remained the same compared to April last year – the salesperson retained the position of the most in-demand occupation, followed by waiter and cook, while driver and warehouse worker swapped places for fourth and fifth.

The largest positive contribution to the growth rate of the index in April came from ads for drivers, clerks, and cooks, while the largest negative contribution came from ads for warehouse workers and finance jobs. Programmers fell six places on the list of most sought-after occupations, from 19th to 25th place, as did finance jobs, which dropped from 15th to 21st place. The occupations that rose the most on the same list were pharmacist and beautician, each climbing six places, with pharmacists moving from 29th to 23rd place, and beauticians from 26th to 20th place, according to EIZ.

Compared to April 2023, the share of ads requiring a medium level of education increased from 63.3 to 65.5 percent, while the shares of ads requiring low or high levels of education decreased from 17.2 to 16.2 percent for low and from 19.5 to 18.3 percent for high levels of education.

The largest negative contribution to the annual rate of decline in the index came from ads requiring a high level of education, while the smallest negative contribution came from ads with a medium level of education, analysts note.

Number of Ads Increased Only in the Southern Adriatic

The trend of increasing the share of ads offering indefinite contracts continued in April, primarily at the expense of fixed-term contracts and seasonal employment, which accounted for 10.7 percent. The Southern Adriatic is the only region that had a positive contribution to the growth rate of ads in April and where an annual increase in the number of ads of three percent was recorded.

The occupations with the largest positive contribution to the growth rate of the index in that region were salesperson, hotelier/host, waiter, and cook. For cooks and waiters, there was an increase in the share of ads offering indefinite contracts, at the expense of fixed-term contracts, while for hoteliers/hosts, the dynamics were similar, with a decrease in the share of seasonal jobs, whereas for salespeople, the share of ads for fixed-term contracts increased, primarily at the expense of seasonal employment, EIZ reported.

OVI – The Online Vacancy Index is a monthly index of online job vacancy ads developed at the Economic Institute in collaboration with the MojPosao portal, aimed at providing timely information on the current state of job demand.

The OVI index is compiled by simply counting the number of unique new ads whose application deadlines end in the month for which the index is calculated. Since only ads published through one portal are considered, the number of ads is expressed as an index (the base year is 2020).