Every Seventh Prague Inhabitant Is a Foreigner

Text: Prague Institute for Planning and Development; edited

 

Last year, the number of foreigners registered in Prague exceeded 200,000. Overall, foreigners make up more than 15% of all Prague residents. An Analysis published by the Prague Institute of Planning and Development (IPR) has provided demographic data on economic activities of foreigners in the Czech capital.

The results have shown that foreigners are significantly more economically active than “average Praguers”. This is related to their demographic and social factors and in particular their purpose of stay, which is usually a new employment. Another important factor is the average age. While the average age of foreigners from EU countries is about 39 years, the average age of third country nationals is lower – around 35 years. Foreigners thus decrease the average age of Prague inhabitants, which would otherwise be between 43 and 44 years.

Foreigners represent an important part of today’s Prague population and an essential source of labour force. At the same time, they are becoming a stable part of the future Prague population. This stabilisation is particularly necessary to meet the needs of the labour market, as the unemployment in Prague has reached a historical minimum.

The analysis shows that citizens from the European Union make one-third of all foreigners.  The remaining two-thirds are citizens from the third countries. Slovaks make up the largest group of EU foreigners. There are 31.5 thousand Slovaks in Prague which is closely related to the historical development of our state. The number of Bulgarians and Romanians has been quickly rising. For many years, Ukrainians have been the most numerous group of third-country nationals. In Prague, there is more than 51 thousand Ukrainians. They are followed by 24 thousand Russians, 13 thousand Vietnamese, and over 6 thousand US citizens. Almost 50% of foreigners have a permanent residence in Prague, which shows that this part of the Prague population is stable and constitutes an important labour force potential.