Unemployment rate in Czech Republic

The unemployment rate is the share of jobless people in the total labour force. It is the main gauge of the Czech labour market and of the economy's ability to create jobs. The Czech Republic is consistently among the EU countries with the lowest unemployment.

It is derived from the Labour Force Survey run by the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) among a sample of households, using ILO criteria: a person is unemployed if they are without work, available to work and actively seeking a job.

Its path reflects the momentum of the Czech economy. A tight labour market fuels wage and price pressures, closely watched by the Czech National Bank (CNB), which runs its own monetary policy with the koruna outside the euro.

It is worth distinguishing whether the rate moves because of shifts in labour demand or in the size of the labour force. Survey data are subject to sampling error and revision, and the harmonised ILO figure differs from the registered unemployment count from the Labour Ministry.