Emigration of Croatian Workforce after Country Joined the European Union

• Author: Anton Petricevic
• Profession: Chair of Labor and social security Law, Faculty of Law at University J.J.Strossmayer Osijek, Republic of Croatia
• Pages: 248-258

Emigration of Croatian Workforce after Country Joined the

European Union

Assistant professor Anton PETRIČEVIĆ

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Abstract

The biggest p roblem Croatia is facing at the moment is mass emigration of its

workforce. This situation has several factors in its background, such as: terrible eco-

nomic situation, inability of employment, lack of perspective for young people, slow, large

and inefficient public administration, financial instability, poor standard of living, tax

repression, job insecurity, and insufficient engagement of the State to improve conditions

through education reform and better use of available resources of the state. Most common

reasons of emigration of our workforce are better job opportunities and better salary,

better working and life conditions in the country of immigration, better p ossibilities for

education and specialization, better possibilities of fulfilling ones values, ackn owledged

status according to effort and devotion, better and safer existence. It is both urgent and

necessary to keep the workforce and stop its emigration because without youn g and per-

spective people and their creative ideas, there will be lack of development and prosperity

in Croatia. Methods used in this paper were: method of analysis, method of synthesis,

method of case study and method of observation

Keywords: educatio n reform, lack of employment opportunities, demographic

reform, creative ideas of young people, mass emigration.

JEL Classification: K31, K37

1. Introduction

The demographic question in the Republic of Croatia should be perceived

as a burning issue and needs to be adequately solved. The task is not easy, on the

contrary, it is very serious and difficult, requires full engagement of profession in

solving this question. Demographic structure is being changed on a daily basis.

The rates of departure of the working-active population don’t stop, on the con-

trary, are being increased and get even more devastating proportions. At the mo-

ment, situation in Croatia is very serious because with these devastating propor-

tions of emigration comes the change of demographic structure of the population

and the disappearance of the critical mass of the population that would be ready

to lead Croatia towards better economic growth and welfare and creating a desti-

nation where it would be easy and safe to live.

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Anton Petričević - Chair of Labor and social security Law, Faculty of Law at University J.J.

Strossmayer Osijek, Republic of Croatia, apetrice@pravos.hr