General trends:

Age

• The percentage of people 65 or over has increased by 4.3% since 2007, and almost 19% of Czechs are now in this category. That is one of the highest percentages in the benchmark. Median age in the country is 41.9 and 4% of population is aged 80 or over.
• The percentage of working age Czechs has dropped from 71% of the population to 66%. That decline has been particularly dramatic since 2011: the country has almost 385,400 fewer people aged 15-64 today. This is the primary source of today’s workforce shortage. Generally, there are almost 92,000 fewer people living in the country compared with 2011.
• The good news is that the Czech Republic leads benchmarked countries in the growth of the population under 15, and that this trend has been increasing.

Economically active population

• The decline in working age population has been mitigated by a rise in the active level of the population, particularly among people aged 55-64 (from 637,000 in 2005 to 846,000 in 2017).
• The Czech Republic leads the benchmarked countries in the percentage of economically active males of working age (almost 83%), and ranks second after Austria for women (with almost 69% share).
• Active males aged 55-64 increased by 11% since 2007. Active females aged 55-64 jumped up by over 21% in the same period.

Education of Economically Active Population

• The Czech workforce depends more heavily on people with a secondary education than the average country in the EU, as well as the countries– except Slovakia– in the benchmark. 71% of the Czech workforce has secondary  education, compared with an EU average of 48%, Germany’s 58%, and Austria’s 53%.
• The country has significantly lower levels of primary-educated people in the workforce (5%). That may mean that people with secondary education are working in jobs requiring only primary education. If so, that would be hindering wage development.
• The country also has a lower level (24%) of tertiary-educated people in the workforce than the EU average (34%), Germany (29%), or Austria (34%). 22% of working men (8% below EU average) and 27% of working women (11% below EU average) have attained tertiary education.
• Policymakers interested in reducing the wage gap may look at the education ratios as the potentially primary cause. 

Internal Migration

• Czechs are moving to cities, and particularly to Prague. Prague and its surrounding Central Bohemia region have increased its population by over 126,000 people since 2011; seven regions lost population since 2011. Southern Moravia, with Brno as a hub, increased population by 16,900. Plzeňský region increased by 9,080. Moravia-Silesia lost 24,730 since 2011.