All analysis from category Macro comment
Macro comment
Retail sales in January: growth at the beginning of the year
Retail sales had risen year-on-year for the second month in a row in January and it was therefore likely that household consumption was beginning to recover thanks to the fall in inflation.
Macro comment
Consumer prices in February: Smoldering inflation in service prices
The inflation storm may have passed. Only fuel prices and a seasonal uptick in recreation prices increased significantly in February. The consumer price index rose 0.3 percent month-on-month in February, while annual inflation slowed to 2.0 percent.
Macro comment
Foreign trade in January: worsening surplus due to exports
The trade balance ended in a surplus of CZK 3.7 billion in January, a year-on-year deterioration of CZK 4.2 billion.
Macro comment
Unemployment in February: stagnation in unemployment and slight increase in job vacancies
The share of unemployed in the 15-64 population stagnated at 4.0% in February. This is an increase by 0.1 percentage point year-on-year. There were 296,000 jobseekers registered at the labour offices, 1,000 more than in January. Seasonally adjusted, we estimate that the jobless rate was flat at 3.7%.
Macro comment
Wages in Q4: Two-year real decline
The last two years will not go down in the history of the Czech economy in the happiest way. Last year and the year before, living standards fell significantly as wages failed to keep pace with the dramatically rising prices of goods and services. The last straw in this negative series should be the development of wages at the end of last year. The average wage increased by 6.3 percent year-on-year to CZK 46,013 in the fourth quarter, but it fell by 1.2 percent in real terms.
