engleski

The Role of Tourism Industry in Reducing Seasonal Unemployment in the EU Accession Countries

The process of transition towards democracy and an open market economy promised an increase in living standards, more individual freedom and overall stability of the society. In order to adjust their economy to EU standards, countries in transition faced many obstacles, varying from country to country and often within each country as well. Despite differences in intensity of economy restructuring, all of the transition economies have experienced a decrease in real wages and living standards, an increase in poverty, and struggles with inflation and related trends, including a sharp and rapid rise in unemployment. It is important to emphasize that transitional countries inherited different human and capital resources, policy instruments, and experiences in market-oriented reform. As a result of the structural transition process towards market economy, the unemployment problem in the CEE region persists and still follows the pattern of the last decade. The main purpose of this paper is to give an overview of labour market trends in EU accession countries and their unemployment problems. As the tourism industry in Croatia, as well as in other countries, is mainly seasonal economic activity, the focus of the research is given to this specific advantage in reducing seasonal unemployment problem. Empirical evidence of Croatian labour market presented in this paper will show how increased seasonal demand can solve regional unemployment differences. By in-depth analysis, authors investigate additional advantages of the tourism industry in job creation, especially for socially susceptible categories of labour force. In spite of the fact that tourism industry is World's largest economic activity with significant share in global employment, the analysis provides certain specific limitations to the human resource recruitment in hospitality industry. Beside the full-time employment, tourism industry offers variety of part-time job positions towards job-to-job transition rather than transition through unemployment. After all, certain recommendations will be given for reduction of unemployment and enhancement of Croatian chances for successful adjustment to the EU labour market standards.

tourism industry ; unemployment ; labour market ; and EU accession

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