Czechs' language skills often weak

While the interest of employers in language-skilled workers is growing, Czechs' skills are frequently insufficient, a survey showed.

According to data from the Grafton Recruitment personal agency, about a third of job seekers speak a foreign language at the highest proficiency level - most often English. Knowledge of at least one foreign language is a requirement for 40% of job offers.

In the past year, 55% of job vacancies requiring a foreign language mentioned English. It was followed by German, French, Italian and Dutch. While the interest in German, French or Italian is growing, the number of vacancies with Russian or Polish is declining.

There are also more job offers for people fluent in two foreign languages. In addition to the most widely used European languages, Hebrew, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese or Korean are also popular, Grafton Recruitment says.

However, while the quality of language teaching in the Czech Republic is improving, Czechs' language skills are still among the worst in the European Union. They are on the same level as the language skills of the French, Poles or Romanians - and according to Eurostat data, only Italians are worse.

36% of job seekers in Czechia speak a foreign language on a very advanced level, around 54% states that their knowledge is on a intermediate level. Two-thirds of job seekers speak English, 12.5% German and 7% French.