COMPETITIVENESS OF CITIES IN CROATIA: ANALYSIS OF EMPLOYMENT DYNAMICS 2001-2019

The aim of this paper is to investigate the growth dynamics of 20 larger Croatian cities, macro-regional and regional centres, in order to indicate changes in their competitiveness. The analyses were carried out for three relevant periods: the pe-riod of growth before the global recession (2001-2008), the period of the global recession (2009-2014) and the recovery period of the Croatian economy (2015- 2019). Employment is one of the most important indicators of economic growth, so employment dynamics data were used in the analyses. The paper points to differences in employment growth of individual Croatian cities compared to the national average and seeks to determine whether this growth is the result of the action of structural (exogenous) factors or local (endogenous) factors. Therefore, a shift-share analysis was carried out, resulting in calculations of the regional, struc-tural, and local factors. It found that in the years before the recession, larger cities had on average much stronger employment growth than the Croatian average. In the pre-recession period, the local factor played an extremely important role in shaping employment growth; in most cities, it was more significant than the structural factor. When the recession hit, larger cities saw a drop in employment of about the same intensity as at the state level, while in the post-recession peri-od they had a slightly slower recovery compared to the Croatian average. In the recession period, there was a sharp decline in the local competitiveness of cities, whose significant recovery in the post-recession period has so far been absent. The number of cities that are above the national average in terms of employment dynamics was decreasing. Above-average growth was achieved during all three relevant periods only Split, Zadar, Dubrovnik and Varazdin. In all three periods, Split, Zadar, Slavonski Brod and Varazdin had local competitive advantages.