Final Word from Monday, February 25, 2013
The 2011 census found that of the 10.44m people in the CR as of March 26 of last year, 5.08m (48.7%) were economically active, 4.78m (45.8%) were not economically active, and 571,064 (5.5%) couldn't be identified one way or the other. Officially, only 499,859 people (4.8% of the population) were unemployed, but somewhere between 45.8% and 51.3% of the population was not economically active. An even higher figure from Pres. Milan Kubek of the Medical Chamber shows that the state pays the health insurance of 61% of the population, because they are children, unemployed, retired, on maternity leave, etc. In a society where about 50% of the population isn't working and depends largely on the state for support, the concept of a "working" class takes on a new meaning. Those who are actually getting up and going to work each day, whether as line workers or managers, have more in common politically than they might think.[Czech Republic statistical office statistics bureau demography]
Glossary of difficult words
working class - the social group consisting of people who are employed for wages, esp. in manual or industrial work; used here in another meaning of anyone who is actually working;
economically active - to review the figures cited, see Table 6 on Page 410 of the linked demographic report;
line worker - a production-line worker in a factory.