A report on active employment policies provides information on the 0.55 million euro subsidies to firms in a difficult situation. The state has funded the temporary shortening of working hours over the past 16 months. Social partners had advocating this for a long time; it was included in the set of proposals for the economic recovery on which a national tripartite agreement was concluded in 2010. Under the scheme, firms could get money for the training of employees who lack work over falling demand as well as wage contributions. Forty-one employers signed contracts from September 2012 until the end of 2013. The active employment policy tools were aimed at people seeking a job for more than five months, disabled people, graduates, people with small children and those aged above 55 years.
English: http://praguemonitor.com/2014/03/18/czech-state-spends-czk-15m-kurzarbeit ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.