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Companies in the Czech Republic will have to accurately track their employees’ working hours. Otherwise they will come under pressure from trade unions armed with a new European court ruling, iHned.cz. reported on Thursday.

A new residential and office quarter is set to go up in the Prague 10 district that will contain up to 650 apartments and become the home of one of the country’s top orchestras, iHned.cz reported.

In the last few decades the number of teenagers who opted to become skilled tradesmen and women has seen a steep decline. Consequently the country now lacks an estimated 300,000 skilled workers in various trades, with masons, electricians and installers the most in demand.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš described the country’s agricultural self-sufficiency as catastrophic in a speech to members of the Chamber of Agriculture on Sunday. He also defended the high-levels of rapeseed cultivation, which he said is a victim of mythmaking.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s (ANO) bid to extend the scope of the electronic cash register system known as the “EET” is a step closer to becoming law. But while one move to delay its implementation was defeated on Friday, other delaying tactics remained in play.

Unemployment rates in the Czech Republic have been the lowest Europe-wide for some time now. The latest data on employment levels is set to be released by the Labour Office on Friday, but already now analysts have told the Czech News Agency that they expect unemployment to have sunk in April to 2.8 percent compared to 3 percent in March. The need for workers is also leading to women taking on more “unusual” jobs, Czech Television reports.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš caused a stir in Central Europe’s banking sector when he suggested that lenders in the country should pay as much of as a fifth of their dividends into a state development fund. Such a measure would bring between 10 and 16 billion crowns into state coffers.

Over six thousand children in the Czech Republic are currently threatened with a distraint order over unpaid debts, while tens of thousands of young people have debts that they have carried over from their childhood. A new amendment to the Civil Code, set to be debated in the lower house on Monday, aims to prevent minors from falling into debt in the future.

The City of Prague and the City’s Transport Authority are planning to introduce an annual pass that could be purchased on an instalment basis, in order to make it more accessible to poorer people, the daily e15.cz reported.

Raising the minimum wage tends to have a knock-on effect of higher unemployment. However, repeated increases in the minimum wage in the Czech Republic over the last few years have not that impact, suggests a new study published by the think tank IDEA, which is part of the economics institute CERGE-EI.