According to the latest statistical data there are 336,000 unemployed people in Croatia, which is 39,000 less than in February this year. Decline in unemployment is related to the tourist season, but it is also the result of Government's current employment policy, primarily of their measures for the young and unemployed. For example, one of the measures includes vocational training for work without employment and a compensation of HRK 1,600, where employers pay contributions and later receive a refund, whereas the Croatian Employment Service gives a monthly allowance of HRK 1,600 to anyone participating in vocational training.
Croatia is a country with great regional disparity where the Virovitica-Podravina County has by far the highest unemployment rate. As far as cities are concerned, Velika Gorica is a town with the lowest unemployment rate in Croatia, while Petrinja, which is only 39 km away, has the highest. Rijeka belongs to the group of cities with a low employment rate with the unemployment rate of almost 11%, as Karlovac. Therefore, it is quite significant when companies in Rijeka register employment growth even in the time of recession.
One of them is JGL that hired 45 new people between the beginning of the year and mid September, 37 of which in Croatia, 2 in the South East Europe region and 6 in the CIS region, while 12 additional employees were hired through the job-finding service. New employees in Croatia work in company headquarters in Rijeka, primarily due to the need to ensure enough personnel in specialized manufacturing departments in time, considering the current and so far the biggest company's investment circle.
Since the realization of planned employments in JGL occurred mostly in the first three quarters of 2013, employment of several new workers is planned by the end of the year. As for the employees profiles and the most common profession, we in JGL put the emphasis on pharmaceutical and biomedical professions, followed by other specialists and engineers in the pharmaceutical industry. Expertise and experience in pharmaceutical industry still remain the biggest challenge, which primarily refers to university degrees, even though higher and secondary levels of education are not excluded, since the key to success is having experience in the branch.
This year JGL has given the opportunity of vocational training for HRK 1,600 to other professions, providing them with the chance to gain working experience. Currently there are 10 young experts employed in Rijeka for the period of one year. Among them there are also economists, and by the end of the year the company plans to make three more such positions available.
The company offers a wide range of opportunities to start and/or advance in a career primarily to pharmacists since already during their studies they learn about numerous pharmaceutical fields - production, forming of medicinal substances, quality, research, development, marketing and sale. However, it welcomes numerous other professions, from medical and technical to social and humanistic. The objective is to develop in every employee from the very beginning a work culture focused on partners and clients (both internal and external), as well as on excellent results. JGL understands the importance of having talented individuals on all company levels in order to succeed in the challenging world of business. It therefore gives its employees the opportunity to advance and realize their full potential by careful career planning and with the help of support through education and improvement.
Considering the significant growth dynamics and quite ambitious plans for the future, simultaneous recruiting of a great number of new employees proves to be quite a big challenge for the company. In order to maintain the "healthy circulation" of the organization, it has instigated initiatives to develop mentoring and coaching skills, knowledge transfer and strengthening fundamental corporate values and culture, which is the first thing a new employee faces. The new employee gains information, tools and specific knowledge necessary for working independently according to the job description of a certain post, helping him in optimal integration in the company as soon as possible, through the plan of introduction and familiarization with the company.
Within the key competences comprising in this pharmaceutical company primarily of expert knowledge and skills, the biggest challenge are those job positions requiring a rather specific set of competences not easy to find on the labour market. To name just a few: technological knowledge in the field of forming medicinal substances, even though JGL focuses on sterile solutions, it also produces drugs in all technological forms except parenteral solutions; knowledge in the field of technological development, control and quality assurance, registration, and other knowledge and experience combinations resulting from specific JGL processes and work model. That is why JGL knowledge centre is planed in order to retain and capitalize the acquired knowledge.
Another channel through which this company reduces the effect of scarce professions is the SPOJ programme. This kind of work scholarship enables young talented pharmacists to find employment as a part of a one-year educational training programme using the principle of rotation and education in all the relevant company departments. That is how both the employee and the company profit - through one-year learning and familiarization with the company, the person in the programme can learn what job suits them the best, while the company can offer young talented employees, based on their affinities, the position that it requires.
The specific elements that JGL can highlight as their advantage in attracting the highly professional personnel are primarily the great range of employment possibilities, especially for the pharmaceutical profession which is interdisciplinary and thus can be adjusted to various strategic fields with which the company deals. In addition, there is the openness of the working environment accepting new employees and helping them to fit in as soon as possible. Finally, there are numerous business challenges - the company has been thinking strategically for many years and it keeps displaying its continuous and ambitious growth and development. The proof of faith in its own strength is the recent investment in production worth HRK 350 million.