Czech employment rate remains high, despite COVID-19 pandemic

The July 2020 employment rate in the Czech Republic has changed little compared to both last year and the previous month.

The employment rate for people aged 15–64 years, seasonally adjusted, reached 74.2% in July 2020 and decreased by 1.0 percentage points compared to July 2019, according to figures from the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ). Compared to June 2020, the employment rate was unchanged.

The male employment rate was 81.2% while for women the employment rate was 67.0%, both seasonally adjusted. The employment rate for people aged 15–29 years, seasonally adjusted, was 45.3%, in the age group 30–49 years it was 87.5%, and in the age group 50–64 years it was 76.3%.

“The total unemployment in July remained almost unchanged compared to June. The numbers of hours worked by employees were even markedly higher than the average of these holiday months during recent years. It can be accounted to the eccentricity of this year as a result of the pandemic situation,” Dalibor Holý, director of the Labor Market and Equal Opportunities Statistics Department of the Czech Statistical Office, noted.

In actual numbers, there were 5,092,800 employed people, with 2,846,000 men and 2,246,800 women. The unemployed accounted for 142,300 people, with 60,100 men and 73,200 women.

The average number of weekly hours worked in July was 32.2, compared to 30.9 for the same time last year. Self-employed people in July 2020 worked 36.8 hours, while employees worked 31.3 hours. Figures for July 2019 were similar, with the self-employed working 36.1 hours and employees working 29.8 hours.