Unemployment in Czechia increased slightly to 3.6% in August, the Labour Office reported. It is up by 0.1 percentage points than in July and by 0.2pp more year-on-year.

There were 260,803 job applicants registered with the Labour Office, an increase of 1,870 m-o-m. The labour market does not appear to be significantly affected by the country’s stagnating economy. Czechia still has one of the lowest unemployment levels in the EU.

“We are observing a drop in corporate activities in the summer on a long-term basis, as far as hiring of new employees goes,” Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Marian Jurecka commented on the figures.    

“The labour market is affected mainly by the employer demand for working professions in manufacturing and construction industries,” the Labour Office noted. It expects the reviving of the market in September, which is annually entered by the new wave of graduates. Some of the seasonal works that are weather-dependent may also end.    

Since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 297,426 Ukrainians obtained work in Czechia, with about three-quarters of these, or 203,383, being women. At the end of August, 113,890 of these worked in Czechia, with many returning to Ukraine, and another 15,046 were registered as job applicants with the Labour Office.

Ukrainians sheltered in Czechia mostly work in manual labour in manufacturing, construction or transportation industries. “In many areas, employers obtained employees which they needed so much,” the Labour Office noted. Manual labour remains a significant part of the Czech industry.