New figures debunk myths about Czechia's foreign workforce

Nearly 1 million foreign employees now work in Czechia, but new figures challenge the idea that they form a single workforce concentrated in low-skilled jobs.

The latest data shows a far more diverse picture, spanning manufacturing and construction to technology, finance, and other highly qualified fields.

Czechia's labor market can no longer do without foreign workers, according to Jakub Seidler, a member of the Czech National Bank's Bank Board, and CNB adviser Ondřej Lopušník, authors of a new analysis of foreign employment.

Foreign employees numbered 935,000 at the end of 2025, up from around 323,000 a decade earlier. Their approximate share of all employees rose from 8 percent to 22 percent over the same period.

But foreign workers are concentrated in different parts of the economy, with the largest number at the end of 2025 working in manufacturing, at 218,400, according to Seidler and Lopušník.

The authors identify manufacturing, construction, transport and hospitality among the sectors where foreign workers are particularly important.

The CNB analysis doesn't provide a simple answer.

Seidler and Lopušník examine foreign employment primarily by citizenship and industry, rather than occupation or qualification level. That means the 935,000 figure cannot be cleanly divided into professionals, skilled workers, and manual workers.

A foreign engineer, production-line worker, restaurant employee, and IT specialist all count toward the same headline number. But the CNB analysis does offer some clues.

Compared with Ukrainian workers, Slovaks are relatively more represented in sectors with higher qualification requirements, including banking, insurance, information and communications, and professional, scientific and technical activities.

Ukrainians are now the largest foreign employee group, with around 358,000 at the end of 2025, up 163,000 from 2021. Slovaks were the second-largest, with almost 230,000 employees.

Workers from countries outside the European Union are becoming increasingly important, according to Seidler and Lopušník, while the number of employees from some traditional EU source countries, particularly Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria, has stagnated or declined slightly.

But some of the fastest growth has come from smaller groups. Since 2021, the number of Filipino employees increased by 11,300, or 422 percent, while the number of Indian employees rose by 5,300, or 127 percent.

The CNB also points to a second trend: workers from a growing number of non-EU countries are continuing to come to Czechia because local wages can represent a significant economic incentive compared with opportunities in their home countries.

The scale of the change is why Seidler and Lopušník conclude that foreign workers are no longer simply a complement to the Czech workforce but “a structurally significant element” of the labor market.

For foreign professionals, that doesn't mean Czechia has 935,000 jobs waiting for them. It does mean the foreign workforce is no longer peripheral to the Czech economy.