Czech companies are eagerly looking for candidates from the Philippines.
The Czech Republic will open its labor market more to Filipinos this year. While only about four thousand residents of these tropical islands nation in Southeast Asia worked in the Czech Republic a year before, this year big changes will come. This year, up to 10,300 Filipinos could apply for a work visas in the Czech Republic.
Domestic managers definitely welcome this change. They confirm that once they manage to handle the lengthy visa process, they get mostly problem-free employees for positions that would otherwise remain vacant.
"We have about fifty positions open every month and we want the best for them," says Petra Slabá, human resources director of the Orea Hotels & Resorts, where Filipino chefs Raymond, John, Ronnel or Jose have been cooking in their hotel kitchens for some time already.
The Philippines has still not recovered from the economic crisis, and many men are looking for ways to provide their families with resources. They are willing to do so, even ten thousand kilometres away in Europe.
"From a cultural point of view, they are mostly Christians, so the work environment suits them. In addition, they speak English well," Petra Slabá presents the reasons why, thanks to the Filipinos, they manage to at least partially reduce the critical shortage of people.
"Our Filipino colleagues are usually very modest people and do not have special demands, but it has proven useful for us to immediately equip them with winter equipment, hats, jackets and gloves, because despite the warnings about the Czech winter, a real encounter with our European weather is usually a problem. Especially in the highlands, where one of our hotels is located," adds Slabá.
The government has increased the quotas for employees by three thousand people since January 2024. In May 2024 there will be another five thousand places available. In total, there should be 10,300 work permits this year alone.
"Nevertheless, we can imagine a further increase in quotas, as the demand for these employees is constantly growing," confirms Tomáš Dvořák, PR manager of the Union of Industry and Trade.
However, companies are faced with the fact that once they have agreed with a future employee, months will pass before they can actually start. "The visa process takes a very long time, the quotas are low, and Czech companies have to wait for these workers for even a year," says Jiří Halbrštát, ManpowerGroup's recruitment and marketing manager.
In addition to the hotel industry, companies also demand Filipinos for extremely scarce positions in industry, such as welders, assembly workers, operators or grinders.
"At the Škoda Group plant in Pilsen, almost thirty employees from the Philippines work as welders and electrotechnical production operators. They became part of the team in early 2022 and worked quickly. We help all our employees from abroad with acclimatization, and it was no different with our colleagues from the Philippines, who, we believe, will continue to work in our ranks in the years to come," says Jan Švehla for the Škoda Group.
After the Ukrainians, the Filipinos thus became the fastest growing non-EU nationality on the Czech labor market. "Their number has jumped from four to six thousand people in the last period. On the other hand, Romanians, Bulgarians and Serbs are gradually leaving the Czech Republic, because the difference in income is no longer so interesting for them," adds Halbrštát.
The most numerous group of foreigners on our labor market, however, remain unequivocally Slovaks, of whom there are currently over 215,000. In second place are Poles (almost 50 thousand) and the third largest group are Romanians (46 thousand).
Written by: Silvie Friedmannová / Forbes CZ
