The Czech Republic has witnessed a recent uptick in long-term unemployment, as indicated by the December data, even though the overall unemployment rate has not experienced a significant rise compared to the previous year. While the total number of individuals without jobs increased by 7,424 to reach 279,227, the notable surge is observed in the category of long-term unemployed individuals—those without work for over a year.

At the end of the preceding year, the labor office reported 74,326 cases of long-term unemployment, a figure that escalated to 82,234 in the latest month. Consequently, the proportion of long-term unemployed people in the total unemployment pool reached 29.5 percent.

Miroslav Novák, an analyst from the Akcenta company, suggested that multiple factors could contribute to this increase. These may include regional challenges or health issues faced by individuals who could not secure employment before reaching retirement age. However, he cautioned against prematurely concluding a trend based on this data.

Conversely, the number of unemployed individuals aged 50 and over exhibited a slight decrease last year. By the year’s end, nearly one hundred thousand people in this age group were unemployed, constituting 36 percent of all applicants.

The unemployment rate for December stood at 3.7 percent, a marginal increase of two-tenths of a percentage point compared to November. However, less than a third of the unemployed individuals received support, with the average amount of this support reaching 10,520 crowns—a year-on-year increase of 761 crowns.

In summary, while the overall unemployment rate in the Czech Republic has remained relatively stable, the discernible rise in long-term unemployment warrants further investigation into the underlying causes and potential interventions to reverse this trend.

Article by Prague Forum