Czechs send fewer SMS, MMS messages on Christmas Day this year

Prague, Dec 26 (CTK) - Czechs sent 73.76 million SMS messages on Christmas Day this year, roughly 1.1 million fewer than in 2009, and the number of the sent MMS messages sank by roughly a fifth to some 699,200, according to data CTK gained from the three largest domestic phone operators.

On the other hand, the number of phone calls grew.

In 2009, the number of the sent MMS messages roughly doubled.

T-Mobile clients sent 29.6 million text messages, nearly 5 percent fewer than last year. Sending SMS messages through all kinds of external applications, such as the Internet, has become very popular. The number of SMS sent in this way rose by 3 percent year on year to almost 3.6 million.

External applications were popular also by Vodafone.

"People sent fewer SMS messages from their mobile phones than last year but the number of SMS sent through the Internet has quadrupled, in particular from the Vodafone park which allows sending one SMS to many phone numbers," said Vodafone spokesman Miroslav Cepicky.

People sent 16.5 million SMS messages through Vodafone, 0.5 million more than last year.

Telefonica O2 clients sent over 27.6 million SMS on Christmas Day, a level comparable with last year.

The highest number of MMS messages (238,000) was sent by Telefonica O2 clients. T-Mobile clients sent 235,000 MMS and Vodafone clients over 226,000 MMS.

T-Mobile registered nearly 16.6 million phone calls on Christmas Eve, down nearly 2.2 percent year-on-year. Almost 9.1 million of the calls were made by the operator's clients.

Telefonica O2 registered over 17.4 million calls, almost 2 million more than last year. As for international calls, people called the most often to Slovakia, Germany and Austria.

Vodafone registered 7.64 million calls, 7 percent more than last year. Its clients called the most frequently to Ukraine, Slovakia, Germany, Russia and Vietnam.Prague, Dec 26 (CTK) - The situation on the labour market in the Czech Republic will probably not improve much next year as analysts believe unemployment will either stagnate or even grow moderately, with the worst development expected in construction, a poll CTK made among analysts shows.

"Next year will not be too favourable for the labour market's revival. The manufacturing industry is over the worst as for the impacts of the global recession but many sectors will see a slower growth in 2011," said Milan Mostyn of the Confederation of Industry, expressing the opinion of many others.

The Confederation expects the GDP growth to slow down, among other things, due to a fall in domestic as well as foreign demand.

The growth in industrial production is beginning to get slower already now and the volume of new orders has been rather stagnating in the last few months. On top of this, companies face strong pressure on cutting costs and raising labour productivity and technological changes, Mostyn said.

Companies are therefore very cautious and most of them do not plan to raise workforce. "Many even plan further layoffs," he noted.

"The improvement of situation on the labour market that we were witnessing in the summer months has ended for now," said Marketa Sichtarova of the firm Next Finance.

She expects average unemployment around 9.2 percent in 2011. The jobless rate at the end of November stood at 8.6 percent, according to Labour and Social Affairs Ministry data.

Petr Sklenar of the firm Atlantik expects average unemployment at a bit lower level next year, namely at 8.9 percent.

"We expect unemployment to peak at 9.5 to 9.7 percent at the beginning of the year when, apart from the traditional seasonal factors like reduction of outdoor seasonal work and ending of fixed-time work contracts, the impacts of savings can be felt," he said.

Sklenar expects the lowest unemployment around 8.5 percent in the autumn when he believes the effects of positive seasonal factors as well as gradual economic revival to be felt.

Komercni banka analyst Miroslav Frayer also expects average unemployment around 9 percent next year.

"Economic growth will probably not boost staff hiring too much, we expect GDP growth to slow down from this year's 2.3 percent to 1.7 percent, in particular due to domestic fiscal consolidation and a slowdown in economic activity on European markets," he added.

People working in construction have the biggest reason to worry next year.

"The sector now has around 450,000 employees. Estimates talk about up to 30,000 people to lose their jobs," Mostyn said, adding that production of building materials may be affected as well.

Industry may be the best off next year. The glass industry, where a third of the employees lost their jobs in 2008 and 2009, has registered a slight revival.

The situation in steel production and the chemical industry is gradually improving as well but a significant revival in these sectors is expected only in the year 2012.

However, some analysts fear than even industry will not be able to avoid problems.

"The growth pace is slowing down significantly," Sichtarova said, adding that if there are layoffs, they should not be as drastic as earlier.

Problems may arrive in the area of services.

"Some sectors still feel a fall in sales, in particular those linked with tourism, so there will still be layoffs there," said Petr Dufek of CSOB, adding that layoffs will probably not avoid the state and public administration.

There will also be differences among regions.

"Prague will see a small wave of growth in unemployment due to the layoffs at state institutions but the labour market will soon absorb most of the unemployed," said Pavel Sobisek of UniCredit Bank.

Among the regions where unemployment stands high, it will fall notably in industrial areas, such as the ones near the city of Ostrava, northern Moravia, and the town of Louny, northern Bohemia.

On the other hand, agricultural and tourist regions, such as those near the towns of Znojmo (southern Moravia) and Jesenik, northern Moravia, will not be much better off than they are now.