Rates of employment, unemployment and economic activity - October 2024

The employment rate
The proportion of employed persons in the number of all persons aged 15–64 years reached 75.0% in October 2024. It decreased by 0.2 percentage point (p.p.) compared to that in October 2023. The male employment rate was 80.7%; the female employment rate was 69.1%. The employment rate of persons aged 15–29 years was 41.5%, in the age group of 30–49 years it was 84.8%, and in the age group of 50–64 years it was 82.9%.

The general unemployment rate
The percentage of the unemployed in the labour force, that is in the total number of the employed and the unemployed (that means economically active persons), reached 2.7% in October 2024. It decreased by 0.2 percentage point, year-on-year. The male unemployment rate reached 2.5%; the female unemployment rate reached 3.0%.

“Czechia has been maintaining the unemployment rate up to three percent, already since May 2021. It is almost taken for granted after such a long time. However, ten years ago it was 5.7%, i.e. over two times more than the current value, and twenty years ago, it was even three times higher,” Dalibor Holý, Director of the Labour Market and Equal Opportunities Statistics Department of the Czech Statistical Office, comments on the results.

The economic activity rate
The percentage of the economically active in the total number of persons aged 15–64 years reached 77.1%. It decreased by 0.3 p. p. compared to that in October 2023. The male economic activity rate (82.7%) exceeded the female economic activity rate (71.2%) by 11.6 p. p.

International comparability
All data presented in the News Release are seasonally adjusted. They apply to the age group of 15–64 years. They come from the Labour Force Sample Survey (LFSS) carried out by a network of interviewers of the CZSO in households and are different in terms of methodology from administrative data of the Labour Office of the Czech Republic on registered job applicants (namely the “Share of unemployed persons” indicator).

The LFSS has an internationally comparable methodology, which defines the employed and the unemployed in accordance with recommendations of the International Labour Organization. The CZSO regularly sends data from the LFSS to Eurostat, which prepares monthly press release on unemployment as for Member States of the EU, however, for the age group of 15–74 years. The unemployment rate in that age group (of the aged 15–74 years) was 2.6% in Czechia in October 2024.

In compliance with the international methodology for the LFSS, the survey is only carried out in private households; collective accommodation establishments as well as temporary shelters are not covered.

Tables 1 and 2 enclosed contain time series of basic indicators of the labour market and numbers of the employed and unemployed persons, starting in 1993.