Prague - A total of 2,880 foreigners were granted a business license between 1 January and 1 March.
If the trend continues, more than 17,000 foreign workers will have received the license this year, which is twice more than last year. The number of foreign business license holders would grow from last year's 77,000 to 95,000 this year.
The reason seems to be clear - foreigners are trying to avoid deportation, which up to 70,000 foreign workers could face in half a year when their work permit expires.
Tension is growing among foreign workers staying in the Czech Republic. On Sunday, already a second foreigner took his life because he had been expelled.
Business license, please
Foreigners are more interested in business licenses than the subsidized trips home, which the government has provided along with a EUR 500 bonus payment for some 2,000 foreigners so far.
"About 15% of foreign business license holders are EU citizens, while the remaining 85% are the citizens of non-EU states," Trade and Industry Ministry spokesman Tomáš Martovský told Aktuálně.cz.
There is more evidence confirming the trend. Authorities in the Pardubice region with some 4,200 registered foreigners, have reported 700 requests for a business license, the news agency ČTK said.
Most of them are Vietnamese nationals. "Stating business activities as a reason to obtain residency has become a new trend adopted particularly by Asians," director of the east Bohemian foreigner's police Milan Majer told ČTK.
Foreigners are opening new nail and cosmetic studios or applying for a business license for assistant workers at construction sites, said the officer. Local authorities say only one Mongolian national has applied for social contribution, while others are trying to solve the problem by helping each other.
"It is the same in our region," head of the business license office at the Plzeň city hall, Pavel Žourek, told Aktuálně.cz. "I won't tell you the exact figure, but it is a lot," he said.
Czechs ageing, in need of foreigners
The Czech Republic is experiencing a very strong fluctuation. At a time of worsening economic results, foreigners are the first to go when companies start with layoffs.
But demand for them is expected to grow. "Despite the current unemployment levels, demand for workers will grow in the medium and long-term horizon due to the demographic developments," Labour and Social Affairs Minister Petr Nečas said at the Czech EU presidency conference in Prague last week.
"The Czech Republic will lose up to 750,000 people aged 25 - 64 by 2030," Nečas said, adding foreign guest workers are expected to largely replace the working-age population.
Conference participants agreed that European governments and employers must focus on developing integration programmes and language classes for workers from abroad.
Many non-governmental organisations also believe Czech authorities will have to reassess their foreign worker policy. Marcel Winter from the Czech-Vietnamese society said it would be more profitable to hire foreigners for community service jobs as they wait out the crisis rather than paying for their ticket home.
Victims of the crisis?
- Another foreigner took his life in Mladá Boleslav on Sunday supposedly in connection with the economic crisis. The 39-year-old worker from Slovakia ended his life by jumping out of an eighth-floor window.
- "He lost his job and couldn't return to his family struggling with debt," said Marcel Winter from the Czech-Vietnamese society. Only two months earlier, a 24-year-old Vietnamese national, the father of two, hanged himself for the same reasons.
- The nationwide controls that the police launched recently only add to the nervousness among foreigners in the Czech Republic. "The goal is to find out if the foreigners are legal here," foreigners' police head Vladislav Husák told Czech Television.
Adapted and republished by Prague Daily Monitor.
