Of the many social and economic problems facing people today, unemployment can be seen as one of the biggest, and some groups of society are particularly affected by this problem. Among the socially vulnerable groups are young, old, people with disabilities, national minorities, migrants. The social economy provides solutions for the employment of these groups through social entrepreneurship, especially through woek integration social enterprises. Through these companies, it allows socially sensitive groups to integrate into the labor market. Integration into the labor market comes to their integration into society, which is extremely important. Since the development of social entrepreneurship in our country is still not at the level as in other European Union countries, the main part of the work is aimed at presenting the situation in Croatia. The introductory part of the paper presents the characteristics 1 of social entrepreneurship and work integration social enterprises and the documents of the European Union that encourage the development of this area. In the paper are presented difficult employment groups defined in the Strategy for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion in the Republic of Croatia. Croatian social policy documents and programs are also presented aimed at the integration of these groups. The characteristics of work integration social enterprises in the Republic of Croatia are also described and two case studies are presented, on the example of social cooperatives Humana Nova and Kameleon. The analysis showed that the biggest problems faced by the lack of a legislative framework, lack of support from the state, and poor public visibility.