Work, Income, Living Level

In April 2005, 36% of respondents characterised the standard of living of their household to be good, 22% share the opposite opinion and 41% of respondents characterised it as neither good nor bad. 6% of citizens indicated their household to be rich, whilst 30% consider it to be poor. Almost two thirds of respondents (63%) regard their household as neither rich nor poor. Problems with current budget of their household were stated by 61% of respondents, on the other hand 35% said they have no problems with budget of the household.

12% of respondents were interested in work abroad, 7% respondents were no sure about it.

In comparison to a half of year 2003, interest in work abroad arose. While in 2003 only six respondents wanted to leave for a job abroad, in December 2004 it was 12 % of repondents.

Czech citizens want to work in Germany or in United Kingdom (both 24 % of repondents)

Little less people would like to work in the USA and in Ireland.

Between November and December 2004 more than a third of repondents (36%) supposed the living standart of their household to be good. 40 %of repondents regard it as neither good or bad and almost a quarter of respondents(24%) consider living standart of their household to be bad. A half of respondents judge their economic situation of their households to be quite satisfactory and 4% assess it to be very satisfactory.

Survey proved that almost priviliged occupation is medical profession, which is supposed to have the highest prestige. 41% of respondents regard doctor proffesion as a top occupation out of 26 monitored occcupations, when avarage evaluation of a doctor profession was higher than a evaluation of a scientist or a university professor, these professions were placed on second a third place. People suppose high prestige occupations to be these : a school teacher,a computer programmer,a judge and a designer.

Major part of czech working people is satisfied with their jobs, when 81 % of economically active people chose that answer.Only a fifth of working people is dissatisfied with the job. People with good standart of living, university graduates , (93% of them are satisfied with their jobs) and earners are satisfied with their jobs.November survey was also focused on evaluation of working relations.

As a part of November survey there were some questions about unemployment.

Three quarters of respondents think, that current level of unemployment is too high. Only a fifth of respondents suppose current level of unemployment to be adequate and only 1 % of respondents regard it as too low. Almost a half of respondents fear of rise of unemployment a third of them think it will remain the same.

In October 2004, approximately a third of respondents (approx. 33%) considered the standard of living of their household as being good. 45% described it as neither good, nor bad, and less than a quarter (22%) characterised it as bad. 4% of inhabitants consider their household to be rich, while 29% consider it to be as relatively or very poor and two thirds as neither rich nor poor. Difficulties when managing the current income of their family were stated by 60% of respondents, 36% of respondents stated that they would cope with the household budget more or less easily.

Discontent with the current situation prevailed in the majority of the investigated areas. The only exceptions with respect to that were represented by the accession of the CR to the EU, the school system and health care system. The highest discontent was expressed in connection with corruption and unemployment where this feeling was declared by more than three quarters of respondents. In comparison to this the evaluation of the current state of social security, efficiency of the state economy, immigration issues, legal environment, involvement of people to have a say in public affairs, efficiency of offices and the standard of living were considerably less unfavourable, despite the fact that this in isolation was also evaluated in a mostly negative way.

In case of losing the job, most people would attempt to find a specific job corresponding to their own ideas. In the census this was expressed by less than two thirds of respondents (65%). Contrary to this, one third of respondents (33%) stated that if they were in this situation they would also accept any job. Regarding the conditions which people themselves set when looking for a job, the relatively smallest obstacles to accept a job were the need for induction or re-training or, if need be, possible overtime work and increased pace of work .

In the May census organised by the Centre for Public Opinion Research within the project Our Society 2004 we investigated, apart from other issues, also the issue of unemployment. More than three quarters of people consider the current level of unemployment in the CR to be too high, less than a fifth of the respondents think that it is adequate, and only 2% of the respondents consider it to be too low.