Despite record-low unemployment, most Czech firms are not interested in retraining staff

Prague, Nov 7 (CTK) – Czech firms are not much interested in retrained workforce or in retraining people from other fields though they have quite long faced the lack of staff, daily Pravo writes today.

A survey conducted for the paper by the CSOB bank within its regular Index of Firms’ Expectations, shows that only one-third of firms admit retrained workers without the required practice. Another 15 percent of firms would employ retrained persons in exceptional cases only and a half of firms would not accept them at all.

The companies say they have no time to train people without long-term experience and professional skills from their field.

“We demand the maximum independence in a short time,” said Rudolf Spesny, an executive of the ALBA precision company dealing with metal machining and surface adjustments.

On the contrary, Bionet plus offering specialised cleaning would accept new staff without practice. “We will train our employees without problems. Their physical endurance, manual skills, precision and loyalty are decisive properties,” firm manager Petr Klokocnik said.

The state financially supports retraining of the unemployed through the Labour Office. However, the number of the retrained workers has been dropping in the past few years.

According to the Labour Office’s data, 13,000 people underwent retraining last year, while a year before it was 18,000. In 2017, the office spent 174 million crowns on retraining and last year, the sum dropped to 124 million crowns.

Out of the people selected for retraining last year, 89 percent completed it successfully and 80 percent found jobs.

In the first half of this year, 2,641 applicants attended some of the retraining courses offered and covered by the Labour Office and further 2,628 underwent retraining they chose on their own, Labour Office spokeswoman Katerina Berankova told Pravo.

The most frequent retraining courses focus on computer skills and obtaining a driving licence or other licences. There is also a high demand for welding and accounting courses.

But some businesspeople are of the view that retraining is not very contributing. “This is a typical product of subsidies with a poor result,” Altra textile company owner Martin Karch said.

Yet more than two-thirds of businesspeople say they enable their employees to extend their qualification and another 10 percent of firms extends the qualification of their selected employees, Pravo writes.