Labour Office: 42,400 foreign workers left Czechia since COVID-19 lockdown

More than 42,000 foreign workers left the Czech labour market in the second quarter of 2020, newly released statistics from the Czech Labour Office show. That means 7 percent of the country’s foreign work force was wiped off the labour market from March to June.

The Czech Republic entered a state of crisis on March 12 due to the coronavirus pandemic, complicating travel and forcing the shut-down of many businesses. A significant part of the foreign work force therefore chose to return home, while the process of securing visas for new workers was temporarily frozen.

The total number of foreign workers in the country at the end of June lay at 602,500.