The Labor Market in the Czech Republic: Trends, Policies, and Attitudes
Flek, Vladislav; Večerník, Jiří
Year: 2005 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 -2 Pages: 5-24
Abstract: The Czech Republic is no longer an employment haven, the site of what had been declared as an ?unemployment miracle.? What happened? In this paper, the authors gather various statistical and sociological data on employment and unemployment trends, wage development, and workers' opinions and their labor market strategies, taken from various surveys. In such manner, not only is the history of the Czech labor market over the past decade written, but also the reasons for the deteriorating labor market performance are addressed, and an appropriate policy agenda is outlined. In particular, the authors identify existing labor market rigidities and show that high unemployment here proceeds in an ever-widening gyre, resulting in the emergence of the unemployment trap and benefit dependency. Active labor market policy measures alone appear to be insufficient to deal with this problem.
JEL classification: J21, J24, J26, J31, J38, J60, J65
Keywords: employment and unemployment structures; labor market policy; labor mobility; minimum wage; social and unemployment benefits; wage inflation and differentiation
RePEc: http://ideas.repec.org/a/fau/fauart/v55y2005i1-2p5-24.html
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