The majority, or 90%, of companies in the Czech Republic are ready to offer up to 15% higher wages in order to address skills shortages, according to a survey from Randstad Czech Republic.

The survey also found that the majority of companies, or 88%, suffer from staff shortages and plan to recruit new people. More than half of the companies (61%) will recruit new employees to permanent positions, while 36% will be in temporary positions.

The sectors that are most open to pay increases are manufacturing (22.5%), engineering (17%), IT (16.2%), sales (13.4%) and HR (9.2%).

Randstad’s survey also showed that 18% of respondents are able to find a new worker in less than a month, while approximately 66% of companies search for new employees for 1-3 months, and the rest search for more than 3 months.

According to the survey, the most effective way to find new employees is via recommendations from existing employees.

Meanwhile, half of the companies said they were recruiting employees aged over 50. Among the measures taken by these companies to attract more employees over 50 include flexible working hours, a reduced workload, shorter working hours, salary increases, and internal retraining.