Czech unemployment rate holds record low of 2.8% in November

According to data published this morning by the Czech Labor Office, the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic has held at a low of 2.8%, with the number of unemployed in the country reaching its lowest number since June of 1997.

An official figure of 215,010 people in the Czech Republic were unemployed in November, a slight decrease over the October number.

Meanwhile, the number of vacancies in the country continues to rise. Over 323,542 open positions were officially filed with the Czech Labor Office in the month of November, an increase of 6,658 over the previous month.

In Prague alone, there were officially 65,009 open vacancies registered with the Labor Office.

The Czech unemployment rate is expected to remain the same over the coming months, though a slight increase could be seen due to seasonal work.

“In the coming months, registered unemployment is likely to stagnate or may slightly increase in connection with the gradual termination of seasonal work and fixed-term work,” Kateřina Sadílková, General Manager of the Czech Labor Office, stated in a press release.

In Prague, the rate of unemployment came in at 1.9%. Still, that was only good enough for second in the country (along with the Plzeň region), as the Pardubice region registered an unemployment rate of 1.8%.

At 4.3%, the highest rates of unemployment were found in the Moravian-Silesian and Ústí nad Labem regions.

Because of differences in the way unemployment rates are calculated, the numbers published by the Czech Labor Office differ from those published by the Czech Statistical Office and Eurostat, which compares unemployment rates across Europe.

Across all three sources, however, the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic is currently at 20-year lows and remains the lowest in Europe by a wide margin.