The number of employees is falling in almost all foreign retail chains in the Czech Republic, according to Mladá fronta Dnes. The trend is being supported not only by low unemployment but also self-service checkout machines, which is allowing retailers to shift their employees to other activities. The paper reports that only Lidl has managed to increase its total number of workers (by roughly one third), however the top seven chains have lost a total of 1,800 people, or 3.2 percent of their entire workforce. Albert, Kaufland and Penny market have been hit by the biggest loses.
“In practice, we offer full-time jobs to almost everyone, but a large number of people prefer part-time work, and we go along with this,” said Ahold’s spokesman Jiří Mareček. “That’s why nearly one-quarter of all our employees are part-time.”
