Tuesday, 14 July 2026
A growing number of Czech employees want to know how much their colleagues earn, with 62% expressing an interest this year—five percentage points more than in 2025.
Nearly three-quarters of workers know, or have at least a rough idea of, the salaries paid to colleagues in comparable positions, according to an Ipsos survey of 1,000 respondents conducted for Provident Financial.
Interest is particularly strong among younger employees. As many as 80% of workers under 26 would like to compare their salary with that of a colleague. University graduates are also more interested in such information than the general workforce.
Although employers have been prohibited from banning workplace discussions about pay since June 2025, only 11% of respondents said they knew exactly what colleagues in the same position earned. A further 63% had an approximate idea.
Younger workers generally had a better understanding of their colleagues’ pay. By contrast, one in three employees over the age of 54 said they had no idea what their co-workers earned.
Eight percent of respondents said salaries were discussed openly at their company, up from 5% last year. Another 30% said employees discussed pay informally, compared with 27% in 2025.
“An open discussion about remuneration will represent a change for many companies and employees, but it should not be viewed as a threat,” Provident Financial director Barbora Pencová said.
“The directive is not intended to divide colleagues. Its purpose is to establish fairer conditions and reduce long-term pay disparities, particularly between women and men,” she added.
Half of employees aged between 18 and 26 said they discussed their pay either openly or informally. Across the workforce as a whole, the figure was 38%, up from 32% last year.
Almost one-fifth of employees said their contracts still contained confidentiality clauses covering pay, even though such restrictions are no longer enforceable under labour-law changes adopted last June. A further 30% did not know whether they had signed such a clause, while more than half said they had not.
Public support for greater pay transparency is also increasing. Seventy percent of respondents believed that sharing more salary information would contribute to fairer remuneration and that companies should be more open about pay. The corresponding figure last year was 65%.
Czechia was required to incorporate the EU Pay Transparency Directive into national law by June 7, 2026. A proposed amendment has completed the consultation process but has yet to be approved by Parliament.
The legislation would give employees the right to request written information about their own pay and the average remuneration of workers performing comparable jobs, with the figures broken down by gender.
Source: CTK
