Country Resource - Czech Republic
- Population.......................................................................10,686,269 (July 2018 est.)
- Population growth rate .............................................................0.1% (2018 est.)
- Birth rate....................................................9.2 births/1,000 population (2018 est.)
- Death rate..................................................10.5 deaths/1,000 population (2018 est.)
- Net migration rate...............................2.3 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2017 est.)
- Ethnic groups..........Czech 64.3%, Moravian 5%, Slovak 1.4%, other 1.8%, unspecified 27.5% (2011 est.)
CIA World Factbook
Since regaining its independence in 1989, the Czech Republic has transformed from a country of emigration to one of rising immigration, amid growing labor market needs. Even as Czechia received few asylum seekers during the 2015-16 European migration crisis, the country has taken a harder line on immigration, and public opinion and political stances have grown more negative towards immigrants and refugees.
Recent Activity
Since regaining its independence in 1989, the Czech Republic has transformed from a country of emigration to one of rising immigration, amid growing labor market needs. Even as Czechia received few asylum seekers during the 2015-16 European migration crisis, the country has taken a harder line on immigration, and public opinion and political stances have grown more negative towards immigrants and refugees.
In 2017, nationalists in Europe and the United States continued seizing on public concerns about immigration and diversity, making gains in pushing their agendas. While their success at the polls was mixed, nativist politicians have succeeded in reshaping broader migration debates, with growing political fragmentation and mistrust of establishment parties making it easier for them to break through.
The global recession has caused countries that once welcomed foreign workers by the tens and hundreds of thousands — particularly Spain — to rethink generous immigration policies as unemployment rates have risen.
Many countries relied on low-skilled immigrant workers during good times. But Japan, Spain, and the Czech Republic have recently introduced "pay-to-go" programs to reduce the number of unemployed immigrants. MPI's Kristen McCabe, Serena Yi-Ying Lin, and Hiroyuki Tanaka, and Piotr Plewa of the European University Institute examine these programs and the larger policy questions they raise.
After its independence in 1993, the Czech Republic became home to tens of thousands of economic migrants. But as Dušan Drbohlav of Charles University reports, tighter restrictions and new laws in accordance with EU standards have not resolved the problems of illegal and transit migration.
This report is the final one in an MPI-International Labour Office series that examines the employment prospects of migrants in the EU (focusing on the case-study countries of the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), as well as the effectiveness of integration and workforce development policies in helping these workers overcome barriers and ascend out of low-skilled work.
This report presents an overview of Czech integration policies, with a special focus on economic integration. It focuses on policies designed to support migrants’ incorporation in the Czech labor market, and assesses the extent to which these policies facilitate migrants’ upward mobility into more skilled work.
The global economic crisis and changing migration patterns in Europe bring up questions about how well immigrants are able to find employment and progress into better jobs over time. This overview report caps a series of six country case studies evaluating the employment outcomes for foreign-born workers during their first decade in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
This report assesses the labor market outcomes of new immigrants in the Czech Republic, focusing on trends according to year of arrival, country of origin, gender, level of education, and sector of employment. The analysis suggests that the challenge of reducing obstacles to immigrant workers’ progression into more skilled employment are worth significant policy attention.
The global economic downturn and rising debt levels in all European countries have put immigration at the forefront of many debates surrounding public spending. This report presents a diversity of findings with regard to European governments' responses to immigrant integration organization, financing, and programs.
