The Czech Republic has the highest percentage of unfilled jobs in the entire European Union, according to data from Eurostat cited by iHned.cz. In the first quarter of this year, Czech companies were seeking to fill 3.1 percent of all positions – and the share was even higher in some industries, the news website reported.

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In the first quarter of last year the number of unfilled jobs stood at 2.5 percent. In 2010, during the economic crisis, it was just 0.8 percent.

The Czech Republic is followed in the Eurostat statistics by Belgium, where employers are looking to make hires for 2.9 percent of jobs (though that figure is for the last quarter of 2016). At the other end of the scale is Spain, with 0.8 percent.

Naturally, the situation is more acute in some industries. In services, for instance, the Czech Republic is in first place, with 4.3 percent of all the sector’s jobs untaken. Germany comes second in this ranking, albeit some way behind on 3.4 percent.

The Czech Republic (5.7 percent) is second only to Slovenia (7.8 percent) when it comes to jobs going begging in its building sector.

Unsurprisingly, the Czech Republic is also first in the European Union when it comes to unemployment. Using EU calculating methods, joblessness reached just 3.2 percent in the first quarter of the year, leaving the country ahead of states such as Germany (3.9 percent) and Malta.

According to iHned, analysts from the bank ČSOB conducted a survey last autumn of approximately 60,000 of the 136,000 vacancies being offered through the national Labour Office.

They found that employers are constantly on the lookout for people in “super cheap” professions. However, it will remain impossible to fill the majority of these positions if those companies are not willing to boost salaries, the ČSOB analysts said.

The lack of employees, along with economic growth, is the main reason average Czech wages have grown more in the first six months of 2017 than in the previous nine years – by 5.3 percent year-on-year.

In May, domestic employers were offering over 174,000 vacancies via the Labour Office. That is the highest such figure in the history of the Czech Republic.

A Labour Office spokesperson told iHned.cz that last month companies were most interested in hiring workers such as building labourers, manufacturing assistants, drivers of trucks and other vehicles, cleaners, cooks (not including chefs) and security guards.

As always, there is high demand for technical professionals across the board. It is precisely there that firms most often face difficulties when it comes to finding qualified employees, the Labour Office spokesperson said.