The number of recruitment agencies in Czech Republic increased by 8.4% in 2018 when compared to the previous year, according to data from the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry.

At the same time, Ministry figures showed the number of foreign agency workers assigned to firms increased by 14.1%.

The data showed that the number of recruitment agencies in the country reached 2,102 by the end of 2018, up from 1,938 in 2017. Since 2014 the number of recruitment firms has been steadily rising with the exception of 2017 which registered  a slight decrease from 2016. The decrease was attributed to the introduction of new labour legislation that meant agency workers must work under the same conditions as regular workers.

The Ministry’s data also found that there has been a rising number of labour law violations including illegal employment.

“The results of inspections show that during the last three years, the practices of employment rules evasion are on the rise.

"In practice, these are most often cases where regular employment is covered up by ‘other than employment’ contracts," the report from the Ministry stated.

In May 2019, Czech Republic reported the lowest unemployment rate within the EU 28 member states, according to data from Eurostat.