How many foreigners are in the Czech Republic and where did they come from?

How many foreigners are there in the Czech Republic and where did they come from?

According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, there were more than one million foreigners in the Czech Republic at the end of March this year. The number of foreigners in the country began to rise significantly after the war in Ukraine broke out. While there were just under 661,000 foreigners in the Czech Republic in 2021, that number had already exceeded one million two years later. 

It is therefore not surprising that the majority of foreigners living in the Czech Republic are Ukrainians, who already had a large community here before the war. There are currently over half a million of them in the Czech Republic, accounting for 52 percent of all foreigners in the country. They are followed by Slovaks with a 12 percent share, Vietnamese with 7 percent, and Russians with 4 percent. The rest are made up of, for example, Romanians, Bulgarians, Poles, Germans, and Mongolians. 

Overall, however, the population of the Czech Republic fell by 41,000 to 10.86 million in the first quarter of this year, according to fresh data from the Czech Statistical Office. The reason is that, due to an aging population, more people died during that period than were born. However, the aforementioned migration to the Czech Republic was also lower. According to statistics, a large portion of those who left were people whose temporary protection expired at the end of March and who did not apply for an extension. 

A total of approximately 62,300 people emigrated from the Czech Republic abroad during the period in question. That is ten times more than in the first quarter of last year. 

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What do foreigners in the Czech Republic do?

The majority of foreigners living in the Czech Republic are employees, while a smaller portion came to the Czech Republic to do business. According to records from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, around 905,000 foreigners were working across the Czech Republic at the end of 2022. This figure includes both employees and entrepreneurs, i.e., foreigners holding a trade license. 

Foreigners thus accounted for 18.2 percent of total employment in the Czech Republic. Significantly more foreigners in the Czech Republic work as employees than as entrepreneurs. There were nearly 800,000 foreign employees, representing a significant year-on-year increase of 13 percent. There were over 111,000 foreign entrepreneurs in the Czech Republic. Between 2021 and 2022, their number grew by 9.1 percent. 

According to the recruitment agency IRS Czech, foreigners in the Czech Republic work in a wide variety of fields. They often head into industry, particularly logistics. In addition to warehouse workers, they also find jobs as administrators or team leaders. In manufacturing, according to IRS Czech, they are employed in less qualified manual labor positions, but also in more skilled trade roles. 

Last but not least, foreigners also work as doctors or as healthcare staff, a sector facing a long-term shortage in the Czech Republic. It is also not uncommon for technology companies to hire foreigners for IT expert positions and other highly qualified roles. It is possible to encounter foreigners in practically all sectors—it is not at all unusual for them to work in science, finance, human resources, or marketing. 

By far the most common place for foreigners to settle is Prague; at the end of 2022, there were nearly 350,000 of them in the capital. The Central Bohemian and South Moravian regions follow at a distance.

Detailed data regarding foreigners in the Czech Republic is summarized by the Czech Statistical Office. You can soon read specific stories of people who came to the Czech Republic for work, but also to open a restaurant or a beauty salon, on the website nejsmesicizi.cz.

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This article was created as part of the Nejsme si cizí (We Are Not Strangers to Each Other) project, which is co-financed by the European Union.

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Author: S.A.

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Sources: 

https://irsczech.com/v-jakych-pracovnich-odvetvich-v-cr-najdete-nejcasteji-cizince

https://csu.gov.cz/ekonomicka-aktivita-cizincu?pocet=10&start=0&podskupiny=293&razeni=-datumVydani

https://www.mvcr.cz/clanek/ctvrtletni-zprava-o-migraci-za-i-ctvrtleti-2024.aspx

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