Work, Income, Living Level

Survey proved that medicine keep constantly its eminent position among other professions as the occupation with a high prestige. 45 % of respondents regard the physician as a top occupation out of 26 monitored professions and the average evaluation of a medical profession was significantly higher than average evaluations of a scientist or a university professor, which were as prestigious professions placed on second and third rank.

Two thirds of Czech employees are satisfied with their jobs. On the other hand 3 out of 10 economically active Czechs are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their jobs, job dissatisfaction was expressed only by 5% of economically active citizens. Almost 8 out of 10 economically active respondents are satisfied with using their professional skills at work, with interpersonal relationships at workplace, with job attractivity and with working hours/shifts.

Seven out 10 economically active citizens (69 %) would try to look for concrete job in case they lost their job, almost a quarter of working respondents (28%) would be willing to accept any job in such situation. In September 2006 number of those who would accept any job they were offered was the lowest since year 2003 when this question was used for the first time. Work demands such as work training and qualification, work overtime or faster pace of work are supposed to be acceptable when taking up a job.

As a part of September survey carried out by CVVM SOÚ AV ČR there were some questions focused on unemployment. Unemployment in the Czech Republic is supposed to be too high by almost 6 out of 10 Czech citizens (58%) older 15 years, a third of respondents (35%) consider it as adequate and only 1 % of respondents think the level of unemployment is too low. Almost a half of Czech public (47%) think that level of unemployment will remain unchanged.

7 % of citizens indicated their household to be "rather rich", whilst 30 % consider it to be "rather" (24 %) or "very" (6 %) poor. Almost two thirds of respondents (62 %) regard their household as neither rich nor poor. Problems with current budget of their household were stated by 60 % of respondents, on the other hand 36 % said they have no problems with budget of the household. People see accessibility of education and health care mostly positively, but all other monitored areas of social conditions are evaluated largely critically.

November survey embraced questions about public opinions on reasons why some people live in poverty in Czech Republic. Respondents had to choose among statements about people living in poverty and say which statement is true.

The statement “some people live in poverty, because they lost their jobs“ was supported by more than two thirds of respondents. Same number of respondents think that some people live in poverty, because they do not want to work.

When considering fairness of some principles connected with income differences, people most positively evaluated income differences, which come from labour efficiency, difficulty or laboriousness of job and acquired qualification. On contrary equality of income is supposed to be the least equitable principle. The most of Czech society (72 %) share an opinion that state should struggle to lower differences between poor and rich people, 21 % of Czechs share opposite opinion.

In November 2005, 36 % of respondents characterised the living standard of their household to be good, 19 % share the opposite opinion and 45 % of respondents described it as neither good nor bad. 7 % of citizens indicated their household to be rich, whilst 23 % consider it to be poor. More than two thirds of respondents (69 %) regard their household as neither rich nor poor. Problems with current budget of their household were stated by 53 % of respondents, on the other hand 43 % said they have no problems to manage with income of the household.

In October survey CVVM questioned economically active respondents, how satisfied they are with some aspects of job.People are most satisfied with their interesting job,time spent in work,working in shifts when more than three quarters of economically active respondents are satisfied with these aspects of job.Approximately three quarters of working people are also satisfied with using their professional skills at workplace and with relations in the workplace.

Almost a half of Czech citizens think that most of unemployed people can not get suitable job.Almost a quarter of czech citizens share an opinion that unemployed people do not want to work and a fifth of responents think that unemployed people can not get any job.Czech people regard current situation of unemployment as very high.6 out of 10 respondents stated that they would look for concrete job in case they were unemployed, on contrary almost 4 out of 10 said they would look for any job.