According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) recent World Employment Social Outlook, although global unemployment rates will rise globally, the unemployment will continue to fall in virtually all the Eastern European countries belonging to the European Union, and especially so in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. Conversely, joblessness is projected to increase until 2017 in the Russian Federation, as well as in neighbouring economies, such as Belarus, which are negatively affected by the economic contraction in the Russian Federation. More employment issues, news inside. 

Today the European Commission published the results of the 2016 edition of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). The Czech Republic ranks 17th among EU 28, down two places compared with the 2015 progress report. 

The U.S. Justice Department is demanding Apple’s help in unlocking at least nine iPhones nationwide in addition to the phone used by one of the San Bernardino, Calif., attackers. The disclosure appears to buttress the company’s concerns that the dispute could pose a threat to encryption safeguards that goes well beyond the single California case, NY times write. Read more opinions on the dispute.

In value terms, Germany was the EU's leading exporter of high-tech products to the rest of the world in 2014, followed by France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Eight countries — Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary , Ireland and the Netherlands — recorded high-tech products trade surpluses. Overall, however, the EU recorded a high-tech Extra-EU trade deficit in 2014, with imports around EUR 7 billion higher than exports, Eurostat data show.