In the Czech Republic, the unemployment rate is the lowest in Europe. More and more women are also working.
The Czech Republic has long been among the countries with the lowest unemployment rate on an international scale among European Union countries. This situation has also been confirmed by the latest data published by the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ). The unusually unbalanced statistics between the number of employed women and men have been changing in recent years, and in the current data, this comparison has noted a relatively significant convergence.
It's no news that the unemployment rate (that is, the proportion of jobless people capable of working to the overall workforce) in the Czech Republic has long been reaching the lowest values among the states of the European twenty-seven. The trend was also confirmed by the latest data of the Czech Statistical Office.
The percentage expression of the unemployment rate reached 2.7% in March of this year and the figure dropped year-on-year by 0.3%. However, as late as February, labor offices were reporting the highest unemployment in the last 8 years at the level of 4.4%, but the methodology of the Labour Office of the Czech Republic differs from the data collection of the CSO and it is the Czech statisticians who work with the internationally comparable Eurostat metric.
The difference in employment between men and women is decreasing
In the latest Eurostat data for March, the Czech Republic retained the top spot in this metric, followed by Poland, Malta, Slovenia and Germany. The situation is long-term affected by the high proportion of Czechs employed in the automotive industry, where they also hold the European primacy, even though in absolute numbers more people in the automotive sector are employed by much larger and more populous Germany.
The Czech Republic then differs from Europe with one more statistical factor. Despite long-term low unemployment, there was an unusually high difference in employment rates between men and women in the country. However, according to statistical data, the trend is starting to change.
"The gap in employment rates of men and women aged 15-64 has decreased to less than 11 percentage points, which is historically unique in the Czech Republic. Until 2010, it fluctuated around 17 percentage points, except for the COVID period, it then continued to decrease,"
Dalibor Holý, Director of the Department of Labour Market Statistics and Equal Opportunities of the CZSO, explained the results of the statistical survey.
Significant difference in the employment of men and women across Europe, reduced workloads may be the cause
However, when compared to European numbers, there is a rather significant difference in this respect. According to Eurostat in March 2025, the unemployment rate for women in the EU was 6.0%, the unemployment rate for men was 5.7%, which is an increase from 5.6% in February 2025. In the Czech data, these figures mean 3.2% unemployment rate for women and 2.2% for men.
Even though among Czech women unemployment is significantly lower than what we see in the European average, the difference in this statistic against men is more than three times higher compared to the rest of Europe. Although men can also take parental leave in the Czech Republic, usually this is not the case. Only about 2% of fathers take advantage of the opportunity.
Nevertheless, the trend that is increasingly blurring the gender gap in unemployment rates in the Czech Republic is noticeable in the data. Detailed studies as to why this long-term phenomenon occurs and why the situation in the Czech Republic is so different from the rest of Europe are missing.
One of the reasons could be the amount of part-time jobs, which are increasingly common form of employment relationship. Part-time work is used by every seventh woman and it is more common among women who devote more attention to child care than among men/employees.
Sources: author's text, CZSO, Eurostat, portu.cz, seznamzpravy.cz, novinky.cz, syri.cz, destatis.de,
