Czech Job Market: Czech ministry mulls massive recruitment of foreign workers to fill jobs

Beautiful and historic Prague, capital of the Czech Republic

A proposal to take 200,000 foreign workers into the country to fill vacant jobs in the Czech Republic was tabled by the Ministry of Finance for the rest of the government last Wednesday, just over a week ahead of elections to the lower house of parliament on October 20 and 21.

The ministry says the document was presented by ANO’s finance minister Ivan Pilný for the information of other Cabinet ministers with the idea of starting a debate, especially with the ministries most directly concerned such as the foreign ministry, interior ministry, and industry ministry. A spokesman said that the target is to deal with all aspects of the issue of recruiting foreign workers and come up a comprehensive policy. The document was not made public.

Where the workers could come from; what is the time frame for the recruitment; whether new procedures would be adopted; and whether priority would be given to workers qualified for certain sectors are all questions which the ministry does not want to discuss at the moment. The finance ministry spokesman described suggestions that the Czech Republic would once again seek workers from traditional sources of supply, such as Ukraine and Vietnam, as "speculation."

The Czech daily Právo reported that the finance ministry document warns that many Czech companies are losing orders because they can’t find the required workers and that some could even go bust if the situation continues.

Social Democrat election leader and foreign minister Lubomír Zaorálek referred on his Twitter account to a separate interview with the Právo newspaper in which he claimed that the finance ministry report was submitted without the normal prior consultation with other ministries.

Zaorálek added that some of the companies seeking to recruit foreign workers are offering monthly wages of around 13,500 crowns. The Czech minimum wage from the start of 2018 should rise to 12,200 crowns.

September’s Czech unemployment fell to 3.8 percent with almost 285,000 unemployed and 200,000 vacancies at labour offices.

Note EU-Digest: If the Czech Republic requires 200,000 foreign workers to fill vacant positions, they better ease-up on immigration laws and start accepting more refugees based on the established EU quota levels

Read more: Czech ministry mulls massive recruitment of foreign workers to fill jobs | Radio Prague