Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced in Parliament on Wednesday that the minimum legally mandated net wage would be raised to 3,750 kuna (€500) in January, or 10 percent up from the current minimum of 3,400 kuna (€450).

“The government would pass the decision on Thursday,” state agency Hina said, citing Plenkovic, who talked about this in his remarks as he formally submitted the annual report on the work of the government to MPs.

He added that the new €500 minimum would equal 50 percent of the average net salary in Croatia “for the first time ever,” and would also total more than 60 percent of the median net salary. He said this decision “would impact 51,000 workers.”

“Five years ago, the minimum wage was 38 percent of the average salary,” Plenkovic said.

He also said that there was 51,000 more jobs in Croatia in August compared to the same month last year. He added that there were 1.6 million Croatians in employment, which he said was the highest August figure on record “after the record year 2008” and the second highest figure “since independence.”

“The unemployment rate, which was 13.3 percent five years ago, declined in August to 7.3 percent,” he said, adding that this was “the result of (government’s) job-creating measures, which had cost some 5.5bn kuna (€731 million) over five years.”

(€1 = 7.52 kuna)