Foreigners make up 4% of Czech population

Posted on 2008-Mar-28 at 08:09 - Post Comment

Foreigners make up almost 4 percent of the population in the 10-million Czech Republic, and their number has been rising year on year, most steeply in 2007, according to the data of the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) released to CTK.

At the end of last year, a total of 392,100 foreigners with long-term or permanent residence permits lived in the Czech Republic that had 10,381,130 inhabitants, according to preliminary data.

The number of foreigners in the Prague hotel  increased by 70,600 last year, which has been the so far highest increase.

Since 1993 the number of foreigners in the country has risen five times.

Fifteen years ago, 77,670 foreigners with long-term or permanent residence permits lived in the Czech Republic, making up 0.75 percent of all inhabitants. Since then their number has annually increased except for 2000 when it declined.

Though the number of foreigners has been constantly rising in the Czech Republic hotels, their share is still very low compared to highly developed countries in Western Europe.

Foreigners make up 10 percent of population in the neighbouring Austria and Germany, for instance. On the contrary, the neighboring Poland and Slovakia have a lower share of foreigners than the Czech Republic hotels.

The largest group of foreign migrants in the Czech Republic comes from Ukraine. At the end of last year, 126,500 Ukrainians lived in the country on the basis of a long-term or a permanent residence permit.

Slovaks are the second largest group, as 67880 of them lived in the Czech Republic last year.
According to the police, a foreigner, nearly 51000 Vietnamese, 23300 and 20600 Poles Russians also held a long-term or permanent residence.

Czech Republic gradually move from a transit country for foreigners in the country of destination.  Many foreigners are attracted by the rising standard of living in the Czech Republic and opportunities to earn money.

The interest in the creation of jobs in the Czech Republic has increased since the country joined the EU in May 2004, and now it stimulates economic growth. In addition, the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic Prague hotels is falling, and some companies are suffering from a shortage of manpower, and seek foreign workers.

This is also why the Czech Republic Prague hotels prepares a system of "green cards" for foreign workers.

The Czech Republic will apply the program of integration of foreigners since 2000, when the cabinet approved it. It was upgraded two years ago.

It includes measures for the Czech language skills, economic self-sufficiency of foreigners in the Czech Republic, their orientation in Czech society, and relations with the Czechs.
The amendment to the law on employment that the Government is to be discussed next Wednesday to facilitate the conditions for the recruitment of foreigners.
Beginning next year, a certain level of knowledge of the Czech language would also be a condition for granting residence permit.