Picking strawberries and apples in the Czech Republic can earn you about 45 euros a day
As Radio Prague notes, just a few years ago interest in part-time work in horticultural farms, especially among students and pensioners, was quite high. Recently, a significant portion of those seeking extra work prefer to work outdoors only in warm and dry weather.
Czech horticulturists have lists of potential temporary employees, whom they call before the start of the new season's harvest. "As soon as the weather turns bad, the willingness to work among the local population drops by 50%," said Vaclav Sorad from the agricultural cooperative 'Dolany' in the Náchod region. Every day, this cooperative uses temporary staff (about 150 people). "Almost half of them are foreigners, who have a much more responsible approach to the task assigned to them than Czechs," emphasizes Sorad.
This is confirmed by the experience of private farmer Petr Karesh, who owns 50 hectares of land: "If it starts raining in the morning, locals stay home, while foreigners go to work without hesitation in any weather and work until the evening."
In turn, the chairman of the Horticultural Union of the Czech Republic, Martin Ludvik, also noted the problem of Czechs' attitude to work. Recently, the union offered work to 140 applicants registered with the labor office and failed. "Out of a hundred unemployed people who initially showed interest in this occupation, 60 already reported on the second day that they would not come to work. In the end, only about forty people came to pick fruit, but during the first working day, more than half of them changed their minds about joining the work process. On the second day, only eight people came, and finally, only two of them managed to stay capable of work for longer than a week," Ludvik describes the 'diligence' of some applicants.
By the way, during the harvest of strawberries, cherries, or apples, workers can earn up to 150 crowns per hour (5.5 euros) and receive about 45 euros for an 8-hour workday. Experts believe that the situation with the harvesting of domestic products in horticultural farms will not see significant improvement this year either.