The Czech labor office reported Thursday that unemployment has sunk to 3.2 percent, with just 242,798 people currently looking for work. It’s the lowest number of unemployed people to be recorded since 1997 and is not enough to cover the number of positions the labor office is trying to fill: 267,107. The server novinky.cz reports that the Czech state has become a major source of competition for labor, having hoovered up 30,000 people over the last five years. It asks why tax payers should pay for those salaries instead of hurting the growth prospects of private companies. Companies are looking abroad for new workers, especially to Slovakia and Ukraine but increasing numbers of Spaniards, Greeks and Italians are finding work in the Czech Republic, typically in technically oriented work. While many companies are trying to implement robotization into their production process, writes novinky.cz, they’re often unable to find enough highly trained experts to install such systems.
