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Business & Economics

THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC GROWTH ON WAGES AND THE SUPPLY OF EMPLOYEE BENEFITS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Martina Hedvicakova, Marcela Sokolova, Hana Mohelska

ABSTRACT. The Czech Republic is in a period of economic growth and among the countries with the lowest unemployment rates in the EU, it is below the natural rate of unemployment. Labour shortages force companies to compete for employees with other organizations. One of the major factors in this fight can be the employee benefits on offer. Is that really the case? The first part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of the unemployment rate in the EU and the Czech Republic. The second part of the article focuses on employee benefits from several selected perspectives. The results show that the offer of employee benefits is certainly not a significant factor influencing the labour market situation. Social benefits make up only a very small percentage of total labour costs and their amount does not increase. The existence of an offer of employee benefits and their amount is additionally dependent on the size of the organization. Although employee satisfaction with employee benefits is very low, data from the CSO shows that labour shortages are more pronounced in wages that have been growing for a long time. In the context of the research question, it can be said that in the Czech Republic, the low rate of unemployment did not have a major impact on the offer of employee benefits during the reviewed period .

KEYWORDS:  unemployment, unemployment development, employee benefits, job satisfaction, research, Czech Republic.

JEL classification:  E24, M53, M12.