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, Požega-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.