Czechs increasingly pessimistic about domestic economic situation

Prague, Sept 27 (CTK) - Czechs are increasingly pessimistic in assessment of the economic situation of their country, as only 6 percent of people perceive the situation as good and 70 percent see it as bad or very bad, a poll conducted in September by the Public Opinion Research Centre (CVVM) has shown

Almost one-quarter of the respondents assess the economic situation in the Czech Republic neutrally.

Compared with the previous poll taken in June 2012, the share of negative assessment of the economic situation increased by 3 percentage points.

The current assessment is also markedly worse than a year ago when the share of critical assessment was 8 percentage points lower overall.

"We can observe a significant worsening also in comparison with the beginning of this year. In a longer time perspective, we can see, despite small fluctuations, a clear trend of a gradual worsening of economic situation assessment from the beginning of 2011," authors of the survey said.

"The latest results do not differ considerably from the historically most critical assessment recorded in March 2010, a period of peaking recession that was caused by the global financial crisis and recession related to it," the authors said.

Czechs are more optimistic in the evaluation of living standards of their own households in which positive assessment predominates.

Almost two-fifths (37 percent) of people said in the survey their living standards are good. Five percent of these respondents said their living standards are very good and 32 percent said they are rather good.

Less than a quarter (23 percent) of Czechs consider their standards of living as bad, with 18 percent of respondents describing them as rather bad and 5 percent as very bad.

Two-fifths of Czechs characterise their living standards as "neither good nor bad".

Assessment of material living conditions corresponds very strongly to subjective assessment of living standards. It improves with a growing income and level of achieved education, and worsens with increasing age.

A total of 1,036 people older than 15 years living in the Czech Republic took part in the survey conducted by CVVM in September.