Employees older than 50 on Croatian labour market – need for a new approach

Croatia has reached demographic maturity, with ever lower cohorts of youngers (and younger labour force numbers), longer life expectations, and rapidly growing share of older population. In such situation, working population older than 50 becomes more and more significant, not only by number, but also as an important pool of knowledge and experiences. 28,36% of total employed in Croatia in 2014 were 50+ years old. That same year (2014) 27,7% of total unemployed in Croatia were 50+ years old. The share of persons 50+ in total number of unemployed grew to 29,6% in 2015, and 31,7% in 2016. Long duration of unemployment is especially accentuated among persons older than 50: in 2016 older persons made 41,91% among those with unemployment duration between 2 and 3 years, 44,00% among those with unemployment duration between 4 and 5 years, 53,23% among those with unemployment duration between 6 and 8 years, and even 70,04% among those with unemployment duration over 8 years. Although Croatian governments for almost quarter of century were devising different “active labour market policies” directed to older persons, their results are questionable. With growing problems to acquire and retain necessary workforce in Croatian enterprises, there is obviously strong need to develop new approach(es) towards people older than 50. This paper is trying to shed new light on this problem and offer new ideas in the field of labour market policies, and human resources management oriented towards older employees in Croatia. The Croatian example (changes, problems, and experiences) may be of interest to other, particularly European, countries in a similar situation.