The ABSL Association presented the results of a market survey of business services in Ostrava. This survey indicates that the North Moravian metropolis has 7,000 employees in this segment, a number representing 11% of the total Czech business services market. Thanks to sufficient human resources and competitive conditions a 20% rate of growth is expected in this region in 2017.
“Compared to other large cities in the Czech Republic Ostrava has an advantage – in spite of falling unemployment rates it can offer a sufficient number of the talented employees our segment needs,” Jonathan Appleton, Director of the ABSL Association said, and he added, “This region has five universities, which 9,000 students graduate from every year, the lower costs and high-quality infrastructure make the Ostrava Region an interesting alternative to the otherwise most popular cities of Prague or Brno.”
There are currently 195,000 working people in Ostrava, over 7,000 of these work in the modern business services sector. A total of 64,000 candidates in the entire region are currently seeking jobs and 33% of these speak English on a higher level than basic.
Salaries in Ostrava range 28% less on average than in Prague. But the purchasing power of residents of Ostrava is not affected by this, because life in Ostrava is cheaper than in the capital city. The average annual salary of people in Ostrava is EUR 11,055, which is roughly CZK 299,000. In comparison, the average salary in Prague is CZK 415,500 and CZK 318,00 in Brno.
Ostrava is also a city which provides enough vacant space to operate modern offices. There is currently 42,000 m2 of vacant office space in Ostrava, so there is clearly enough to choose from, and fact that rent for these areas presently ranges between EUR 8 and 11.5 per m2, which is approximately 30% less than in Prague, where rent ranges from EUR 11.00 to 19.5/m2/month, is also significant.
The ABSL Association executed the survey in cooperation with its strategic partners, the Grafton Recruitment Agency and JLL, which is an expert in real estate. Full report you can find here: https://www.absl.cz/docs/Ostrava_City_Profile.pdf
