Breaking barriers: rising above the challenges of the labour market

The market for skilled jobs in the Czech Republic is characterised by several trends. Many of these, such as high demand for skilled labour, continued wage pressure or talent mismatch, have persisted for several years. Others, such as cost optimisation or more detailed selection of candidates, have emerged more recently.

While some companies in the past year limited their recruitment efforts to a necessary minimum, others recruited quite heavily, but may have faced a shortage of candidates who matched the companies' requirements. In general, across all sectors, there is a clear effort by companies to find the ideal candidate to meet or exceed the maximum requirements. The reality, however, is that this "absolute fit" is very difficult to find on the labour market, or to adequately evaluate, given that candidates who are not actively seeking a career change usually expect a ten to twenty percent higher salary to consider moving to a new employer.

Jobs in demand

In-demand occupations include IT developers, IT security, experts in data analysis and data-oriented jobs in general - whether from an IT perspective or with a financial or marketing specialisation, as well as financial controllers and accountants with English language skills. The shared service centre sector is also buoyant, and the growing trend in demand is also evident in administration. Experienced salespeople are also in demand - especially in the technology and engineering segment. Business development specialists are also sought-for heavily. Hardware and software engineers are among the most in-demand and scarce profiles.

The shortage of skilled workers remains one of the key issues on the global labour markets, not excluding the Czech Republic, which is closely related to the need to upskill and reskill the workforce. There is therefore a need to provide workers with adequate training and education programmes to enable them to acquire new skills and knowledge, either to keep up with current needs in their field or to move into new roles or industries. 42% of companies in the Hays survey from October 2023 identified education and training programmes as a top HR priority for 2024.

Wages and 2024 outlook

Wages in the skilled jobs sector have been rising, averaging around eight per cent, with more growth traditionally seen in junior roles. This rate of growth was slightly faster than predicted for 2023, mainly due to persistently high inflation, which only began to slow in the second half of the year.

It is inflation, which has been slowing down again in recent months, that has caused employers to be cost-conscious and to anticipate more modest increases, usually not exceeding 5%, for 2024. Companies in the Czech Republic, but also worldwide, plan several necessary further investments, whether in innovation, technology or process optimisation in general. Compared to previous years, the interest in temporary workers and contractors is increasing significantly, due to the high flexibility of these jobs, which can not only be a good economic decision, but also will not increase the company's headcount. According to the Hays survey, 92% of employers are planning new hires - at varying intensities and on different types of contracts. Companies are therefore quite optimistic about the future, and the supply of vacancies is therefore expected to grow again. 

Agnieszka Pietrasik Managing Director Hays Czech Republic, s.r.o. pietrasik@hays.cz www.hays.cz