Work, Income, Living Level

Results of our survey show that currently 6% of Czechs are considering working abroad, almost half of them are young people between 15 and 19, with students prevailing in the group. Work abroad is considered by men twice as often as women, further, it is considered by people without dependants, single and lone people. Most Czechs considering work abroad would prefer their destination to be Germany, the USA, the UK or Canada.

Within the group of the 15+ population where the option of unemployment could be first considered, a quarter of them (26%) have experienced unemployment since 1989, while 9% of were unemployed repeatedly. People with basic education (43%) were those who most often experienced unemployment, unlike university graduates where the ratio of those who had ever been unemployed was relatively low (9%).

Our May survey confirmed a low level of professional mobility of our employees: 45% of them have remained in one profession during the course of their lives, a quarter of employees have changed their profession twice at most: 16% once and 9% twice. 7% changed it three times and another 7% more than three times. Respondents who changed their profession at least once gave more detailed information on how many times they had done it since 1989.

A total of three fifths of economically active Czechs work in the town or a village where they also reside, while two fifths commute. Mainly people from villages and small towns commute. More than a half of economically active people (56%) travel between home and work in less than 20 minutes whilst exactly a quarter manage to complete a journey between home and work in less than10 minutes. Another group of more than a quarter of the employed 28% take between twenty and forty minutes to get to work and the remaining 16 % travel to work for an even longer, whilst 3% need more than an hour to complete one journey.

The question “How, in general, are you satisfied with your job?”, was answered as follows: 66% of respondents answered that they were happy with their jobs, 6% were dissatisfied and 28% were only partly satisfied. The most important factors contributing to job satisfaction are the length of commuting time and the level of interesting aspects of the job (80% of satisfied employees). On the other end of the scale, there were financial factors, i.

In the May census we surveyed if Czech employees provide a higher or lower efficiency compared to those coming from the West and East. 24% of respondents presume that there are differences in working efficiency between Czech and Western staff, 30% think that the efficiency will not be different and 46% of respondents were unable to answer the question. Two thirds of those who presume that the efficiency will differ also think that the efficiency of Western staff will be higher.

Most of economically active respondents who are concerned with this problem stated that they did not have problems balancing both (59%). About a fifth handles their job tasks very well - but at the expense of their family (21%). Two percent experience the opposite – they cut work short for the benefit of their family. Fifteen percent manage to handle just half of family and work responsibilities. Three percent of respondents balance work and family with major difficulties.

Respondents were asked several questions concerning unemployment in the May census of the CPOR. The first question was to survey how the inhabitants assess the current level of unemployment in the CR. As our results show, about two thirds of Czech inhabitants over 15 consider the unemployment in the CR to be too high, 26% considered it to be adequate, and only 2% of citizens think that the unemployment in our country is too low.

The survey showed that the most frequent form of assistance provided by employers is a reduction of working hours to a part-time job - this is available at a workplace of 29% of respondents. Approximately one fifth (22%) could benefit from flexible working ours or a job-share (21%). Approximately every tenths respondent stated that he or she could work from home (11%) and that their employer provided them with an exceptional leave of absence (12%).

The issues of balancing work with a family life were surveyed by the department of Gender & Sociology of the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Science of the CR in an April questionnaire. No problems were reported by almost a quarter of respondents (23%). If some problems were reported they occurred during the third year of the child’s life. Half of respondents reported that they problems with how to balance work and family duties appeared at this stage.