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Historically low unemployment rates are having unusual side effects on the way companies treat their employees. News server Aktuálně reports that companies sometimes have to tolerate drunk and otherwise intoxicated employees for fear of having no one to replace them if they were fired.

Nearly a third of Czech households saw their financial wealth grow last year, a study published by GfK reveals. The market researcher’s director, Tomáš Drtina, told journalists at a press conference that this was the largest wealth increase since the study began to be conducted more than twenty years ago. Households expect their income to continue growing in 2019 as well.

The Czech Ministry of the Interior has reduced by over one-quarter its funding for non-governmental organisations focused on preventing corruption. The money has been diverted into an anti-drink driving campaign – despite a previous government pledge to allocate more funds to anti-graft groups. I discussed the news with David Ondráčka, head of the Czech branch of watchdog group Transparency International.

Czech billionaire developer Radovan Vítek’s CPI Property Group completed the sale this week of 550 million euros (CZK 14 billion crowns) in 4.9% bonds, a day before a CZK 70 billion lawsuit was filed against the him, the company and others in a US District court in New York over alleged fraud.

Year-on-year growth in consumer prices accelerated to 3.0 percent in March, the Czech Statistics Office reported on Wednesday. It is the highest year-on-year price growth since October 2012.

The Czech state could have lost out on hundreds of millions of crowns worth of tax money by not taxing heated tobacco, a report by Czech Radio has found out. Between 2017 to March 2019, products such as Philip Morris’ HEETS were excluded from the consumer tax.

February saw Czech industrial production experience a year-on-year growth of 1.5 percent, according to the latest Czech Statistics Office report released on Monday. The growth was mainly the result of energy production. The automobile manufacturing sector experienced a decline, but improved compared to previous months.

Vietnam’s start-up airline Bamboo Airways, which began operations in January, in expected to soon launch direct flights to the Czech Republic, which has a sizeable ethnic Vietnamese minority, the daily E15 reports.

Major Czech brewing companies are planning to open dozens of new branded pubs this year, Hospodářské noviny reported on Thursday. The move builds on a trend seen in recent years and is aimed at stemming a decline in consumption.

Prima TV, the second most popular commercial TV station in the country, has announced it is teaming up with CNN International Commercial (CNNIC) to launch a 24-hour news platform. The CNN Prima News channel should combine international news coverage by the CNN with national reporting covered by Prima.