Czechia's Pension System Surplus to Be Half the Forecast This Year

Czechia's pension insurance system is expected to close this year with a surplus of roughly 10 billion crowns — significantly less than earlier projections suggested. That's according to a fresh estimate from the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, cited by Czech Television.

Just recently, the ministry had expected the system to end the year with a surplus of 15–20 billion crowns. The new calculations turned out to be far more modest.

First half of the year back in deficit

As in previous years, the pension system closed the first six months of the year in the red — this time with a deficit of 3.3 billion crowns. Still, that's the lowest half-year deficit in seven years and the third-best result since 2013, when monthly statistics began to be tracked.

Between January and June, pension contributions from employees, employers and self-employed workers totalled 375.4 billion crowns — 23.2 billion more than a year earlier. Expenses came to 378.7 billion crowns, of which 375.2 billion went directly to pension payments and around 3.5 billion covered administrative costs. Pension payouts themselves were 17.3 billion crowns higher over the half-year compared to the same period last year.

How things stood before

For the whole of last year, the pension system posted a deficit of 9.2 billion crowns. The last time it closed a full year with a surplus was back in 2018 and 2019 — before the coronavirus pandemic.

Around Prague, based on reporting by seznamzpravy.cz