Job security in the public sector in Croatia has clearly lost its attractiveness and a situation of a shortage of workers has occurred, reports Jutarnji list. According to the report ministries cannot find employees even for positions with a starting salary of 8,000 Kuna.

The Ministry of Justice and Administration announced a competition on May 25 for 22 positions, including one for senior IT consultant, judicial information system specialist, with a starting salary of around 8,000 Kuna. And no one answered them.

They were also looking for the head of the service for international cooperation and only one candidate came forward. The starting salary here was around 9,000 Kuna.

The problems with the labour market faced by private companies, who can no longer find domestic worker and therefore increasingly import foreign workers, are increasingly spilling over to the civil service as well.

In the past, job security was attractive, especially during crises, when the private sector was forced to lay off workers, and today, when the situation is such that there is a shortage of workers everywhere, no one wants to work for the state, where the average wages are relatively low and where there is no real progress on the basis of merit.

In just three months of this year, the ministries were left without 165 people, and compared to a year ago, the number of employees decreased by 324, so at the end of March, 16,435 people were employed. Estimates are that a large number of administrative staff will retire in the coming period.

The spell of extremely warm weather in Dubrovnik continues today with temperatures touching 35 degrees. The historic Old City was yet again a magnet for day-trippers and tourists, even though the sun-warmed stone streets and high levels of humidity made sightseeing thirsty work.

The week has seen temperatures in the mid-thirties and the forecasters are predicting that the warm spell will continue until Wednesday of next week, when storms are predicted at the end of the week. If you were looking to cool off a little in the Adriatic the current sea temperature is around 26 degrees, so warmer than the air temperature in many northern European cities.

The diaspora sends more than tourism earns from the summer, writes Večernji list on Saturday, after research on how expats perceive Croatia.

Expatriates believe that the greatest advantages of the homeland are the sea and natural landscapes, tradition, cultural heritage, hospitality, gastronomy, rich history, and the greatest disadvantages are the weak economy, inefficient political power, the legacy of communism, low level of democracy and political culture, lack of community and care for the environment.

Although, according to the population census, Croatia has less than four million inhabitants, it can actually boast 8 million if all of the Croatian diaspora all over the world are included. If we exclude Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatian minorities in neighbouring countries, the facts show that more than 4 million Croatian emigrants and their descendants live on various world meridians and parallels. With the largest number of Croatian diaspora believed to be in the US and Chile. There are also significant numbers in Germany, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

They represent a strong potential of political, social and economic power. However, the question is to what extent they "feel" Croatia, what Croatian identity means to them, which could attract them to visit the homeland of their ancestors more and to invest, promote it and lobby for its political interests.

In the last 24 hours, 1,078 new cases of infection Covid-19 virus were recorded, and the number of active cases in Croatia today totals 6,191.

Among them, there are 257 people are receiving hospital treatment, of which 8 patients are on ventilators. Unfortunately, 3 people died in the past 24 hours.

From February 25, 2020, when the first case of infection was recorded in Croatia, until today, a total of 1,150,653 people have been infected, of which 16,073 have died, a total of 1,128,389 people have recovered, of which 357 recovered in the last 24 hours.

There are currently 3,335 people in self-isolation.

To date, a total of 4,946,180 people have been tested, 2,810 of them in the last 24 hours.

According to data from the eVisitor system, the arrival of 831 tourists were recorded in Smokvica Municipality during the first six months of the current year, which is 64 percent more compared to the same period last year.

5,407 overnight stays were achieved, which is 58 percent more than last year. Of that, only 1,940 percent of overnight stays were realized by domestic tourists, and the rest by foreign tourists.

As part of the “Summer in Lazareti” program on July 7 at 9:00 p.m, the popular vocal group, Klapa Cambi, will perform on the plateau of Lazareti. This performance will open this summer’s program and entrance is free of charge.

“Summer in Lazareti” will also feature a dance festival called 'Dance invasion' from August 9 to 14 in Lazareti. The program is intended for all interested people over the age of five, and will be led by five mentors/coaches of different styles, so participants will learn jazz, Latin, modern, etc.

The closing of “Summer in the Lazareti” will be marked on August 24, also on the plateau of Lazareti, with a concert by Marko Pecotić Peca and his band.

This season's first passenger train that runs on the Sarajevo-Ploče route was officially welcomed today in Ploče. It is a passenger line that was re-established after more than eight years.

Today's welcome of the train, on behalf of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, was attended by Deputy Prefect Joško Cebalo, who expressed his satisfaction with the return of this line.

"We hope that there will be enough passengers and that this line will pay off commercially. As we know, the line is scheduled to run three times a week. We believe that in the future that number of weekly departures will be even higher. Certainly, this is a potential for the City of Ploče, and for the entire Neretva area, which is also connected to Bosnia and Herzegovina in this way during the season,” said deputy Cebalo.

Seasonal trains on the route Sarajevo-Mostar-Čapljina-Metković-Ploče will run on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, from July 1 to September 11 this year.

Today, the Prefect of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Nikola Dobroslavić, together with the Vice President of the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Minister of Finance, Zdravko Marić, and the Minister of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Oleg Butković, visited the new Pelješac bridge, which will be officially opened, together with part of the access roads, on July 26.

Minister Butković pointed out that all planned activities related to the construction and commissioning of this capital project are going according to plan. However, clearly the fact that the access roads on the Ston side of the bridge have yet to be finished is not ideal.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Zdravko Marić expressed his satisfaction with the project. “There are comparative analyses that say that this bridge and access roads are even more favourable in financial terms compared to comparative examples in other countries. This is an impressive building that we will admire for years, but what is even more important, this region, the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, will have numerous benefits from this project,” said Minister Marić.

Today's tour of the Pelješac bridge was attended by the president of the Croatian Roads Administration, who pointed out that the rest of the access roads, i.e. eight kilometres of the Ston bypass and the connection to the state road, will be completed by the end of the year. Until then traffic over the bridge will be forced to use roads that weren’t designed for such heavy traffic and clearly this will cause traffic jams and delays.