This country profile highlights current inclusive entrepreneurship policy issues and recent developments in the Czech Republic. It also benchmarks key self-employment indicators for women, youth, seniors and immigrants against the average for the European Union.
The Missing Entrepreneurs 2019
Policies for Inclusive Entrepreneurship
Abstract
The self-employment rate was slightly above European Union (EU) average in 2018 (16.0% vs. 13.5%). It was also above the EU average for women (11.1% vs. 9.6%), youth (9.7% vs. 6.5%), seniors (18.7% vs. 17.7%) and immigrants (19.4% vs. 8.0%). However, the self-employed were less likely than the EU average to have employees, notably women (14.1% vs. 23.3%), seniors (22.4% vs. 31.0%) and immigrants (16.3% vs. 27.6%).
There are ongoing efforts to promote entrepreneurship to youth. In recent years, entrepreneurship education has been slowly embedded throughout the mandatory education system. This has been complemented with several extra-curricular initiatives including a series of business contests such as “Economic Team”, which was organised by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports starting in 2016-17, and Junior Achievement’s “Firm of the Year” content in grammar and trade schools. Moreover, many industry associations are active in promoting youth entrepreneurship, including the Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Crafts which has a programme called “Young Business”.
Several initiatives have been launched to support entrepreneurs in small and outlying regions. These include the 2017 SME Support Action Plan, which had a measure to support of entrepreneurs from small municipalities (under 3 000 inhabitants) because they face more difficult conditions for starting a business than entrepreneurs from large cities. Moreover, the Czech-Moravian Guarantee and Development Bank introduced the EXPANSION programme in 2017, which focuses on facilitating business loans to entrepreneurs and SMEs in economically disadvantaged regions. The total allocation of the first call was CZK 2.2 billion (EUR 84 million).
This profile is based on a recent country assessment report, which can be found at: www.oecd.org/cfe/leed/inclusive-entrepreneurship.htm.
Notes: The self-employment rate is defined as the number of self-employed people (15-64 years old) divided by the number of people in employment. The TEA rate is the proportion of adults (18-64 years old) involved in setting up a business or managing a business that is less than 42 months old. Necessity entrepreneurship is defined as entrepreneurship activities that were launched because there were no other options in the labour market. Early-stage entrepreneurs are those who are in the process of setting up a business or managing a business that is less than 42 months old. The EU average in Panels D-F excludes Czech Republic and Malta for the period 2014-18 and Malta for the period 2009-13.
Sources: Panels A and B: Eurostat (2019), Labour Force Survey, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/lfs/data/database; Panel C: Eurostat (2018), Self-employment, Labour Force Survey ad-hoc module, https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/lfs/data/database; Panels D-F: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2019), Special tabulations of the GEM survey 2014-18.