Lazy and comfortable Czechia
Construction, hospitality, hospitality. In these and many other segments of the Czech economy, companies are increasingly struggling with a shortage of suitable manpower. They are not people. The data released today should confirm a markedly declining domestic unemployment rate, estimated at 3.7 percent in June, 0.2 percentage points less than in May. At first glance, these numbers are certainly favorable. They show that the Czech economy has managed the pandemic situation very well. Government programs such as Antivirus have taken over. But at the cost of hundreds of billions of new debt, jobs have been successfully saved. So many employees, in fact, were paid by the taxpayer instead of their employer, often even when they weren’t too straightforward at work.
Some Czechs found another job during the pandemic. For example, in the sphere paid for with public money. By constantly increasing the number of officials and other employees paid from public money, the state draws workers away from construction companies, restaurants and hotels. Part of the Czechs during the pandemic, when their state, respectively. the taxpayer, paid for not working, that is, a kind of vacation, was also more comfortable. They now want even less to do demanding work, for example on the construction site, than before the pandemic. In addition, they are afraid that the delta variant of covid will cause a wave of closures in the autumn, so they prefer to work in segments where there is no threat of closures. Which is definitely not the case with restaurants or hotels.
Foreigners are the salvation of many Czech companies. Despite the pandemic last year, 22,000 more foreign workers were added to the Czech Republic. According to Grafton, there are already a total of 644 thousand of them, their number has been growing significantly every year since 2014. And it will grow this year as well. Dominated by Ukrainians, Slovaks and Vietnamese. As many as 240,000 foreigners work in the metropolis of Prague. However, they are also used outside the city. For example, Ukrainian combs and fruit combs are usually much more efficient than their Czech counterparts. One example for all. The most efficient worker from Ukraine harvests up to 200 kilograms of peas per day. Czechs can usually harvest only 50 kilograms.
The pandemic will thus hasten the influx of foreign workers into the Czech Republic. It is now still constrained by pandemic restrictions and the fear of people around the world about the infection, now most recently the covid delta mutation. However, when the pandemic situation completely subsides, even more foreigners will enter the Czech labor market than before the pandemic.
The Czechia thus finds itself in a paradoxical situation. The debt, which will be repaid by Czechs, even those not yet born, employs a noticeably growing number of foreigners.
Lukáš Kovanda
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