News

MP Zdeněk Hřib will defend his position as party chairman at the nationwide Pirate Party forum in mid-January. His challenger will be David Witosz, deputy mayor of the Moravská Ostrava and Přívoz city district, Pirate Party spokesperson Kristina Jochmannová told the Czech News Agency (ČTK) on Friday. The Pirates are still finalizing the full program of the meeting.

Companies most often lack workers for manufacturing, technical specialist positions, service jobs, as well as managers and other skilled tradespeople. The shortage is appearing broadly across a wide range of sectors. This follows from a survey on missing professions conducted by the analytical team of the Chamber of Commerce among 450 companies across regions and industries.

At Thursday’s meeting of the Prague City Assembly, Deputy Mayor for Transport Zdeněk Hřib resigned and was replaced by fellow Pirate Party councillor Jaromír Beránek, the Czech News Agency reported. Another deputy mayor, Jiří Pospíšil (TOP 09), also stepped down. He will be succeeded on the city council by Tomáš Slabihoudek (TOP09),  who, thus, becomes councillor for culture and tourism. Michal Hroza (TOP 09) will serve as the new deputy mayor.

Hřib was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in October, prompting his departures from city leadership. Whereas Pospíšil planned to leave for family reasons.

Prague’s budget for next year anticipates revenues of CZK 116.35 billion and expenditures of CZK 119.05 billion, city councillors approved on Thursday. The city’s largest planned investment remains the construction of the Metro D line.

The population of the Czech Republic fell by 12,300 in the first three quarters of this year, dropping to just under 10.9 million. At the end of September, the country had exactly 10,897,178 inhabitants. The decline was caused by a significant excess of deaths over births; there were nearly 25,100 more people who died than children born from the beginning of the year through the end of September. This was the deepest natural population decrease recorded for the first three quarters since the establishment of the independent Czech Republic, the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ) announced on Friday.

Even the fact that roughly 12,800 more people moved to Czechia than left for abroad did not offset the decline. Year-on-year, both births and marriages decreased, while deaths and divorces were slightly higher compared to the same period last year.