ANALYSIS OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT OF EASTERN CROATIA AND THEIR IMPACT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH

In Croatia, there are great differences in the development of certain regions measured by standard indicator of GDP per capita, unemployment and employment rate trends, and equipment with various components of the infrastructure. There are noticeable and significant differences in human resources development. The objective of the paper is to analyse human resources development in Eastern Croatia and to establish their impact on the economic growth of Eastern Croatian counties. This will be conducted in three steps: the subject of analysis in the first step will be global human component through quantitative and qualitative indicators (population density, average household size, level of urbanisation); indicators that directly express the degree of utilisation of human resources (employment per 100 inhabitants, employment per sectors), indicators pointing to the existence of the preconditions for the formation of high-quality human factor (coverage of relevant age groups by secondary and tertiary education, the number of pupils and university students per 100 inhabitants). In the second part of the research, the authors will use the Human Development Index (HDI) to evaluate human resources development in Osijek-Baranja County, Pozega-Slavonia County, Brod-Posavina County, Vukovar-Srijem County, and Virovitica-Podravina County. With regard to content, the Human Development Index can be used as a good indicator of human resources development, and is, at the same time, the indicator of the achieved level of development od a certain country/region, because it measures life expectancy, education, and GDP per capita. In the third part of the research, quantitative methods will be used to analyse the relationship between HDI and GDP per capita of Eastern Croatian counties and some possible measures for human resources development will be proposed.