Comparison of selected labor market indicators in the Czech Republic, Austria and the Slovak Republic

The aim of this purely empirical article is to clarify the consequences of the economic decline, affecting European countries in connection with the financial and economic crisis in 2008, for the labour markets, and to answer the question, in which of the three examined countries the labour market performed the best results. The article presents a comparison of selected labour market indicators in the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia. It concluded that Austria overcame the crisis with smallest impacts on the labour market, being constantly a country with high level of employment and low level of unemployment. The Czech Republic succeeded in the employment rate of men, in low unemployment of workers with highest education and in not rising long term unemployment rate. The Beveridge curves proved unanimously in all the three countries firstly the decline of cyclical unemployment up to 2008, then the decline of structural unemployment in the Czech Republic and Austria, and after 2008 considerable rise of cyclical unemployment. A short improvement on the labour market in the years 2010-2011 was the most significant in Austria and the weakest in Slovakia. The cyclical and structural unemployment then rose up to 2013.