Prague, June 11 (CTK) – Crafts and skilled trade have been on a sharp decline in the Czech Republic, with 36 percent of Czechs being trained manual workers but only 13 percent of adults doing manual work as their profession, a survey the NMS Market Research agency conducted for the Hornbach company has shown.
Those with a craftsman’s training often abandon their profession after some time or they never do it at all.
In addition, the number of applicants for crafts studies has been steadily declining.
Some professions, such as roofers, threaten to completely disappear from the labour market.
The growing shortage of craftspeople has already been noticed by the public. Most of the respondents surveyed (77 percent) said it is enormously difficult to find a good skilled trader.
Eighty-seven percent said the number of craftspeople is critically low.
“Although more than a half of Czechs present themselves as do-it-yourselves, the society is heavily short of those who perform a craft as their profession. They make up a mere 13 percent of the people between 25 and 64,” Hornbach’s marketing director David Kolar said.
People most often seek skilled traders among their acquaintances and friends (69 percent) or make their choice based on someone else’s recommendation (60 percent), the survey showed.
In cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, people more often prefer seeking on the Internet (46 percent).
More than a half of the 500 respondents said they were mostly or always satisfied with the hired craftspeople’s work.
None of them voiced absolute dissatisfaction in this respect.
