Economic activity of the population - 4. quarter of 2006
Product Code: e-3133-06
Employment in the primary sector (agriculture, forestry, fishing) decreased by 7.6 thousand to 176.2 thousand persons year-on-year and made up only 3.6% of the total number of first (main) jobholders. The number of persons employed in the secondary sector (industry, construction) increased compared to Q4 2005 by 39.3 thousand to 1 941.6 thousand (39.9% of total employment). This growth was mainly affected by the year-on-year increase of 50.6 thousand in employment that occurred in ‘manufacturing’. The number of employed persons went up most in ‘manufacture of parts and accessories for motor vehicles and their engines’ (+27.2 thousand), ‘treatment and coating of metals; general mechanical engineering’ (+9.7 thousand), ’manufacture of plastic’ (+8.5 thousand) and ‘manufacture of electronic valves and tubes and other electronic components’ (+7.2 thousand). Decrease in the number of employed in ‘construction’ by 19.6 thousand showed itself most in ‘building completion’ and ‘building of complete constructions or parts thereof’. 1)
Employment in the tertiary sector (all divisions of services including transport) increased by 27.1 thousand to 2 42.9 thousand (56.4% of total employment), but it developed in the individual divisions in an opposing way. Employment increased most in ‘real estate; renting and business activities’ (+25.1 thousand) ‘health and social work’ (+16.4 thousand), and ‘other community, social and personal service activities’ (+8.2 thousand).
Within the section ‘real estate; renting and business activities’ the growth showed mostly in the section ‘legal, accounting and book-keeping activities; market research and public opinion polling’, in ‘investigation and security activities’ and in ‘other computer related activities’. In ‘health and social work’ employment increased the most in ‘social work activities’ and within the section ‘other community, social and personal service activities’ the number of employees increased mainly in the section ‘sewage and refuse disposal, sanitation and similar activities’.
On the other hand, employment dropped most year-on-year in ‘education’ (-20.6 thousand), mainly in ‘primary education’. Employment dropped also in ‘public administration and defence; compulsory social security’ (-9.8 thousand), most in ‘provision of services to the community as a whole’.
An increase in the total number of self-employed by 30.0 thousand showed itself mainly in the section ‘real estate; renting and business activities’ (+14.0 thousand). Year-on-year increase in the number of self-employed persons, including contributing family workers was the highest in ‘legal, accounting, book-keeping and auditing activities; tax consultancy; market research and public opinion polling; business and management consultancy; holdings’ (+5.6 thousand), in ‘advertising’ and within the section ‘miscellaneous business activities n.e.c.’. In ‘manufacturing’ (+11.5 thousand) the number of self-employed increased in ‘manufacture of furniture’ and in ‘transport, storage and communication’ in the section ‘land transport’. Compared to Q4 2005 the number of self-employed markedly increased also in ‘human health activities’.
The total employment rate of persons aged 15-64 grew year-on-year by 0.5 percentage points to 65.6%. The relative increase was higher in the employment of men at working age (+0.6 percentage points to 74.2%), while employment of women was 0.3 percentage points up and reached 57.0%. The employment rate is pushed down by a fast growth of the number of students at universities on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the number of persons in employment is increasing due to the concurrence of employment of strong age groups born at the turn of the forties and fifties and in the middle of seventies
Compared internationally, the Czech Republic is among the countries with the above-the-average employment intensity in the EU. According to the latest complete data for Q2 2006 released by the Eurostat, the employment rate of persons aged 15-64 in the Czech Republic was higher than the total for EU25 and came closer to the level in the EU15. Nevertheless, differences in employment rates are considerable, not only if we compare the whole age group 15-64, but also in the male and female components of employment. On the one hand, there is a high level of employment in the northern countries and the United Kingdom (e.g. in Denmark it was 76.9% in Q2 2006), on the other hand in many countries the level of employment was lower than 60% (in Poland it reached only 53.9% in Q2 2006). Compared to our neighbour states, higher level of employment is in Austria and slightly higher also in Germany, level of employment in Poland and also in Slovakia is, however, significantly lower. Very low unemployment rate is also in Hungary. In the following table, there are apart from data for Q2 2006 also data for Q3 2006 (a qualified estimate was made for some of the countries).
For the CR’s economy a high share of employment in the secondary sector (industry + construction) is typical. This share is the highest among all of the EU25 countries and the closest are only shares of this sector in total employment in Slovakia. Similarly, in ‘manufacturing’ its share in the CR reached 28.4% of total employment in Q2 2006. This is the highest value among all EU states and the CR surpassed also Slovenia. In the CR, the share of ‘manufacturing’ was by approximately 10% higher than in the EU25 and by 11 points higher than in the EU15. On the other hand, our branch structure of employment is distinguished by a significantly lower representation of services than in the EU15 (-13% points), but also in the EU25 (-12 % points). Below the average representation has mainly ‘real estate, renting and business activities’ and ‘health and social work’. In the following table, there are data on the branch structure of selected EU states in Q2 2006, for which the Eurostat published last complete results.
The employment of persons living in the individual regions of the Czech Republic dropped year-on-year the most in the Liberecký and Pardubický Region. The number of employed persons increased particularly in the Středočeský, Olomoucký and Zlínský Region
There were almost 95% of persons working full time in their main job in the civil sector of the national economy. Nearly 240 thousand persons worked part-time in their main job, most of them were women (180 thousand).
The share of persons working full time in their main job is in the CR the third highest among all EU member states. Representation of full time jobs is higher in Slovakia and Hungary, the total employment rate is however below the average in Slovakia and Hungary. Share of men working full time in the CR was the second highest in Q2 2006 among the EU25, women had the fourth highest share.
Especially women appear to have an extraordinary high differentiation of the shares of full time jobs in employment in individual EU countries. In several countries of the original EU15, high number of women uses the opportunity to work part time, particularly in the Netherlands (3/4 of working women aged 15-64 years) and in other countries their share exceeded 40% of women employment. The opportunity to work part time is one of the social aspects, which in the long term affects the fertility rate in particular in the Netherlands and in some of the other countries.
The number of hours actually worked in the reference week reached 38.4 hours, in full-time employment it was 39.4 hours. The differences in working hours of employees are large, both in terms of their professional status and industry (CZ-NACE sections). The self-employed worked approximately 47.4 hours a week, members of producer cooperatives 39.4 hours, the category of full-time employees followed with approximately 37.9 hours worked. In the long term, these differences are apparent both for men and women when generally men work longer in all of the status categories. The most hours worked in their main job had employees in construction and in hotels and restaurants (both cases 41.7 hours), the least had employees in education (33.3 hours).
The average number of hours actually worked per week in the main job was according to the complete results of the Eurostat in the CR the highest among all of the EU25 states in Q2 2006. In the category employees the number of hours worked per week was the second highest in the CR and in the category of self-employed the fifth highest. If we detach from the fact that the CR has an extraordinary low share of part time jobs, also the category of persons working full time has one of the highest number of hours worked per week in the EU25 (in Q2 2006 it was the 4th place for persons working full time total, 3rd place for employees and 6th place for the self-employed).
High share of self-employed in the total employment, an extraordinary high share of persons working full time and above the average number of hours worked in the main job (full time) proves in the front position of the CR in the number of hours actually worked per week per worker. 2)
A similar situation is in hours usually worked, where the CR was in Q2 2006 on the 2nd place behind Greece (the difference between hours actually and usually worked is in the case of this Mediterranean country affected by seasonal employment particularly in tourism and agriculture)
With the growing total employment of the residing population and the economically inactive, the number of the unemployed decreased. The number of unemployed persons (ILO methodology) reached 339.6 thousand on average in Q4 2006, i.e. a fall of 65.2 thousand year-on-year. The number of the unemployed decreased mainly in the age group 25-29 by 15.6 thousand; it also dropped in the age group 15-19 (-11.6 thousand). The number of unemployed men (154.0 thousand in total) is still below the number of unemployed women (185.6 thousand). Under the total year-on-year drop in unemployment, the unemployment of men decreased by 21.5 thousand, and the decrease showed itself in the whole group of 15-64 years old persons, except 55+ years old persons. Over the same period, the number of unemployed women decreased by 43.7 thousand in total, it dropped in all of the other five years age groups of the productive age.
The number of persons unemployed for a long time (1 year or more) fell by 31.0 thousand. Taking this total drop into consideration, a slight increase in the whole age group 15-60 years was only recorded among men in their thirties.
The number of the unemployed with basic education decreased by 13.4% year-on-year to 84.5 thousand, which is connected with a general decrease of the number of persons in the productive age with the lowest level of education. The number of unemployed persons with secondary education without GCSE (with secondary vocational education in particular) decreased by 18.9% to 157.0 thousand and the number of the unemployed with secondary education (with GCSE) decreased by 10.7% to 84.8 thousand. The number of unemployed university graduates dropped by 29.9% to 13.2 thousand; the unemployment of university graduates is markedly lower when compared to the first three groups.
Year-on-year, the unemployment dropped particularly in the Moravskoslezský, Ústecký and Olomoucký Region, in regions with high or above the average unemployment. Compared to Q4 of the last year, the number of unemployed increased only in the Liberecký and Královehradecký Region.
The growth of total employment and the decrease in the number of the unemployed resulted in a relatively high decrease of general unemployment rate of persons aged 15-64 (ILO). In comparison to Q4 2005, the general unemployment rate decreased by 1.3 percentage points to 6.6%. It decreased mainly among the female population (by 1.8 percentage points to 8.1%), while it dropped among the men population by 0.8 percentage points to 5.3%. According to the latest complete results of the Eurostat for Q2 2006 the general unemployment rate in the Czech Republic was lower than in the EU25, when with a relatively low unemployment level of men the level of unemployment of women in the CR was also below the average of the EU25. The big decrease of unemployment during the last year in the Czech Republic had a positive effect in both of the comparisons with the EU25 and EU15 countries when in Q2 2006 the unemployment rate in the CR was lower than the average of the EU15.
Compared to the neighbour states, the level of unemployment is higher than in Austria but markedly lower than in Poland and Slovakia, where it is still extremely high and the highest throughout the Union. Our unemployment level is lower also in comparison with Germany mainly due to an unfavourable situation in the long run in the federal states in the regions of former DDR.
The number of economically inactive persons aged 15+ (according to the LFSS methodology they are persons who had no job and were not seeking a job during last four weeks or did not meet all conditions for being classified among the unemployed) increased by 61.2 thousand year-on-year and reached 3 595.0 thousand in Q4 2006. This category is primarily affected by numbers of the retired and of persons preparing for their future occupation. The number of basic school pupils decreased by 8.4 thousand; the number of secondary school pupils including vocational schools increased by 22.5 thousand to 526.0 thousand. The number of university students including higher professional school students grew by 4.4 thousand to 273.9 thousand. The number of economically inactive normally retired persons not actively seeking job reached 1 849.9 thousand, the number of persons in early retirement 61.5 thousand and the number of disability pensioners 252.8 thousand. These figures cannot accurately correspond to the statistics on pupils and students compiled by the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports of the CR or to the numbers of pensioners on the records of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the CR because the pupils, students or pensioners who fulfilled the criterion of being classified among persons in employment or unemployed persons in the reference week are not reported as economically inactive.
Notes:
1) When evaluating the branch structure of the employed it is necessary to take in to consideration the methodology of sample survey, which is carried out only in flats and not in collective accommodation establishments. Data on the number of employed from LFSS is then corrected by statistics within the harmonization with data on employment development of foreign state citizens in the branch. According to the available data from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the CR last year saw a marked increase of the number of foreign citizens in construction who mostly do not live in flats.
2) Data in the New Cronos database on hours actually worked in a week do not include cases of respondents who did not work at least 1 hour in the reference week.