The unemployment level in the Czech Republic dropped to 3.7% and remains the lowest in the EU
The development of the labour market in the Czech Republic currently corresponds to the period when unemployment rises in the winter and falls in the early spring. In fact, according to Marian Jurečka, the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, March is the month when employers are most interested in community services and it is also the beginning of seasonal work, so unemployment is expected to decrease further in the coming months, reaching 3.5% at the end of May. Currently, after rising for eight consecutive months, the country’s unemployment fell by two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.7 per cent in March. At the end of the month, the number of people out of work was about 273,000, 9,000 fewer than in February, and the number of job vacancies increased by 1,400, with employers offering about 284,500 in March alone. In particular, vacancies increased for the second month in a row, and again, as in the last two months, the number of vacancies exceeded the number of jobseekers, so nothing has changed regarding the lack of employees in the Czech economy. Almost unchanged is also the age structure of jobseekers, as the average age continues to be 43. Taking the international sphere into consideration, according to data from the European statistical office EUROSTAT, the Czech Republic had the lowest unemployment rate in the entire European Union.
The table below shows the development of unemployment in the Czech Republic, especially the percentage and number of unemployed as well as the number of vacancies:
| February 2023 | March 2023 | March 2022 | |
| Share of unemployed (percentage) | 3.9 | 3.7 | 3.4 |
| Number of unemployed | 282.508 | 273.478 | 252.873 |
| Number of vacancies | 283.097 | 284.525 | 360.168 |
(Source: CTK Ceske Noviny)
How has the unemployment rate changed over the past years
The graph shows the level of unemployment in March from 2014 to 2023:
(Source: Patria.cz)
The graph above shows the levels of unemployment in the Czech Republic from the year 2014 to the year 2023 as of March. It can easily be seen that the trend was downward until 2018 (3.5%) and then, from 2019 onwards it started to stop and increased in 2021 (4.2%). In March 2018 the labour market was beginning to show strong signs of overheating, which is also true for the number of jobseekers, and despite this the March 2023 figure is only slightly higher than 5 years ago. Despite the fact that the Czech domestic economy has been declining slightly since last year, the domestic labour market remains in very good shape with a solidly increasing wage dynamic and still surprised positively in the first quarter of this year with full-year values of just over 3.4% in 2022.
What is the level of unemployment in the various Czech regions and districts?
The lowest unemployment rate was recorded in the regions of Zlín, Pilsen and Pardubice with a value of 2.9% while the highest level of unemployed (5.7%) is in the region of Ústí. In the Moravian-Silesian region, the rate also remained above five per cent at 5.1 per cent. As for the districts, unemployment remained low in Praha-východ and Praha-západ, with 1.6 per cent and 1.7 per cent, respectively. Looking at the labour supply, the data show that employers are mainly interested in construction workers, forklift and warehouse workers, truck drivers, cooks, tilers, and cleaners, and that the greatest demand for new employees is in Prague, where more than 78,000 jobs are available.
Source: https://www.ceskenoviny.cz/
Graphic Source: https://storyset.com/
Source of images: https://pixabay.com/
