Rates of employment, unemployment and economic activity - September 2024

The employment rate
The proportion of employed persons in the number of all persons aged 15–64 years reached 74.9% in September 2024. It remained unchanged year-on-year. The male employment rate was 80.7%; the female employment rate was 68.8%. The employment rate of persons aged 15–29 years was 40.8%, in the age group of 30–49 years it was 85.5%, and in the age group of 50–64 years it was 83.1%.

 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 2.9% in September 2024. It increased by 0.2 percentage point, year-on-year. The male unemployment rate reached 2.5%; the female unemployment rate reached 3.4%.

The economic activity rate
The percentage of the economically active in the total number of persons aged 15–64 years reached 77.1%. It increased by 0.1 p. p. compared to that in September 2023. The male economic activity rate (82.7%) exceeded the female economic activity rate (71.2%) by 11.6 p. p.

“Almost a twelve-point difference in male and female economic activity rates is still high above the average and ranks Czechia among countries like Romania, Italy, Greece, Malta, or Poland. However, September data are confirming a trend, when female economic activity is growing much faster, the scissors are thus closing, and we are approaching standard values in the European Union,” Dalibor Holý, Director of the Labour Market and Equal Opportunities Statistics Department of the Czech Statistical Office, comments on the results.

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 2.8% in Czechia in September 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.