Unemployment in the Czech Republic rose to 3.8 percent in July, up from 3.6 percent in both June and May. There were 283,011 people out of work in the mid-summer holidays, up 10,327 on the previous month. Job vacancies were lower than jobseekers for the eighth month in a row, falling by 1,526 to 262,026 compared to the previous month, according to data released today by the Czech Labour Office. Unemployment was three tenths of a percentage point lower in July last year, at 3.5 per cent. Analysts see seasonal reasons as well as a weaker economy behind the rise in unemployment.
“The number of registered job seekers was 20,985 higher than the number of registered vacancies in July. This is the eighth month in a row that demand has exceeded labour supply,” the Labour Office said.
The slight increase in unemployment during the first month of the holiday season is a result of normal seasonal developments, it said. “It is also due to reduced activity of companies in the area of hiring new employees, which is typical for the summer months. We also see a beginning interest in the labour market among recent graduates. In general, the share of unemployed people is still at low numbers, and the Czech Republic is doing very well in the long term compared to other EU countries,” said Labour and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL). In international comparison, unemployment in the Czech Republic is the second lowest in the European Union.
Unemployment rose month-on-month in all 14 regions and in 75 out of 77 districts, while it fell only in the Sokolov and Jesenice regions. The highest unemployment rate last month was in the Ústí nad Labem region, at six per cent. On the other hand, the lowest unemployment rates were in Prague and Vysočina Region, where it was 2.9 percent. Among the districts, unemployment was highest in Most, where it reached 8.6 percent. On the other hand, the lowest share of the unemployed was in the Prague-East district, where 1.5 percent of people were looking for work.
On average, there were 1.1 jobseekers per one job vacancy in July. The biggest overcrowding on the labour market was in the Karviná region, where there were 10.6 job seekers per one position. At the other end of the ladder were Mladá Boleslav and the districts of Prague-East and Prague-West with 0.3 applicants per job offered.
In terms of educational level, jobseekers with lower qualifications, especially those with an apprenticeship without a high school diploma and with primary education, were most often unemployed. Employers were most often interested in building construction workers, forklift truck operators and warehouse workers, assembly workers, cooks, truck and tractor-trailer drivers and cleaners. The highest demand for new employees is in Prague and the Central Bohemian Region, where the employment offices offer around 78,600 and 51,000 jobs respectively.
The number of people registered with the labour offices includes the unemployed who cannot start work immediately. These are, for example, people on retraining courses, unemployed women on maternity leave, prisoners or unemployed people on sick leave. There were 261,219 so-called available jobseekers aged 15 to 64 who could start work immediately in the Czech Republic in July.
At the end of July, 131,072 Ukrainians with temporary protection were working in the Czech Republic, according to the Czech Labour Office. About 62 percent of them were women. Most often, Ukrainian refugees work as helpers in construction, production and transport, as assemblers of products and equipment or as operators of machinery and equipment. There were 15,367 citizens of Ukraine with temporary protection on the records of the labour offices last month, similar to June. These people accounted for 4.8 per cent of the total number of job seekers, up from five per cent in June.
Source: CTK
