In Central and Eastern Europe it is becoming a structural business issue. July 2026 Eurostat figures, the Czech dependence on foreign labour, and why workforce sourcing now belongs in long-term risk management.
Europe's labour shortage is not a temporary HR problem. In Central and Eastern Europe, it is becoming a structural business issue.
The latest Eurostat figures for July 2026 confirm it again. Unemployment stands at just 3.3 % in Czechia and 3.4 % in Poland (Eurostat harmonised rate, July 2026), compared with 6.1 % across the EU; the Czech Labour Office's own measure — the registered share of unemployed persons — stood at 5.0 % in September 2026, which is the figure our Czech guides quote. Czechia continues to operate one of the tightest labour markets in Europe — and this has a direct consequence: economic growth in the region is increasingly dependent on foreign workers.
Foreign nationals already represent approximately 22 % of all employees in Czechia — around 935,000 people, according to Czech National Bank data for the end of 2025. Ten years ago, that share was only around 8 %. The change is most visible in labour-intensive sectors: manufacturing, logistics, construction, hospitality, care services and skilled blue-collar professions.
But there is another strategic issue that companies in CEE should already be thinking about.
Both Czechia and Poland have become heavily reliant on workers from Ukraine. In Czechia alone, around 358,000 Ukrainian citizens were employed at the end of 2025 — more than 38 % of all foreign employees. Nobody knows exactly when or how the war will end. But when the reconstruction of Ukraine accelerates, it is reasonable to expect that at least part of this workforce may eventually return home. For Central Europe, even a partial return could create another significant shift in an already extremely tight labour market.
That is why I believe companies should not look at international recruitment simply as a solution to today's vacancies. It is becoming part of long-term workforce risk management. The question is increasingly not whether an organisation will need international talent, but how diversified and sustainable its future sources of workforce are.
This is also why we have been building our capabilities in the Philippines for several years. Filipino workers have proven to be an excellent fit for many European labour markets — particularly in skilled manufacturing, engineering, construction, logistics, hospitality and care. More importantly, they give companies an additional long-term source of talent instead of increasing dependence on the same limited labour pools already shared by the entire CEE region. And the model matters: the worker is employed directly by the company that hired them, with the contract signed and verified before departure.
Update, October 2026 — the Philippine quota in numbers. In an interview with Euro.cz I put the Czech–Philippine corridor into figures: about 4,900 Filipino workers came to the Czech Republic last year, and the same number arrived in the first eight months of this year alone. The government quota for the Philippines has grown from 2,000 a year (2020) to 5,300 (from 1 January 2024) and 10,300 (since 1 May 2024; confirmed by Government Regulation 109/2026 Coll. from 1 July 2026) — and because it is allocated month by month, the July and August allocations were fully exhausted. For next year a quota of 14,000–15,000 would match the demand we see from employers. Almost a million foreign nationals now work in the Czech Republic; the economy would no longer function normally without them. The sectors asking for Filipino workers are the ones in this analysis: manufacturing, logistics, hospitality, healthcare and care, construction.
Follow-up, 6 October 2026. Novinky.cz reported that employers are now pressing for the quota to be raised. The figures in that piece: the 2026 quota for the Philippines is 10,300, released in monthly tranches of 858; the July, August and September tranches were exhausted; and nearly 17,500 Filipinos lived in the Czech Republic at the end of June — about 5,000 more than a year earlier. My two proposals, as quoted: capacity roughly 5,000 a year higher, and unused monthly capacity carried over automatically to the following period instead of lapsing. The Ministry of Industry and Trade says it wants to streamline the process and bring approval times down to about 45 days.
The labour market of the next decade will look very different from the one we were used to. Companies that start diversifying their workforce today will be much better prepared for that shift than those that wait until the shortage becomes critical.