AmCham Human Resources Committee: Developing innovative workforce is not a task for one ministry

Developing innovative people is not the work of one ministry. The education ministry has to retool curriculums and teaching approaches. The immigration ministry has to modify their attitudes to foreign engineers and scientists. The Ministry of Industry has to target advanced technology investment which create interesting work at interesting pay for people with STEM degrees. The Culture Ministry and others have to invest in urban areas that attract creative individuals.

So, how are we doing?

58.8% of all researchers employed in Czechia work in the private sector. That is below the EU average.

Czechia had 51.7 Bachelor students In STEM per 1000 in 2022, 19 master’s students, and 9.8 doctoral students. Many people say we need more females in STEM. We rank 14th in the EU in female STEM students. We rank 15th in male STEM students. Maybe we should push for both.

The number of skilled immigrants has declined from 1 for approximately every 2 unskilled immigrants in 2015 to 1 skilled immigrant for every 3 unskilled immigrant in 2023. Some of that can be attributed to Ukrainian refugees, but this trend has increased every year since 2015.

The numbers tell a different story than the multiple national strategies the government has crafted to guide our economy. This is not to point a finger at any one. Many people in government are working hard to turn reality into what policy promises. It is just that individual efforts have not resulted in collective progress. We agreed with Jana to work together to search for why the outcome of policy is diverging so much from its stated intention.

Many thanks to AmCham Vice President Jaroslava Rezlerová of ManpowerGroup and AmCham immigration lead Miroslav Mejtský of Petyovský & Partners for leading the session, and to Jaroslav Bělehrad of Y Soft, Filip Franek of Amazon and Filip Šváb of AT&T for providing insights and inspiration.

Members can receive the 2024 Workforce Report by emailing Barbora Vítová at bvitova@amcham.cz.