Czechia: manufacturing productivity, cost and AI adoption in 2026 data

One of the most manufacturing-intensive economies in the EU, built around car production, and the CEE country where AI use in factories has come closest to the EU average.

Key figures: Czechia vs EU-27

Source: Eurostat, dataset codes in the last column. Value added per worker is our calculation (gross value added ÷ employed persons). Labour cost is in EUR and includes exchange-rate effects. *The enterprise count includes a large number of sole traders and is not a count of factories.

Sector mix: the top five branches

Source: Eurostat nama_10_a64, B1G, current prices, 2023. Total manufacturing value added 2023: EUR 65,202 m. Share is our calculation. Rubber and plastic products (4,102) follow.

Motor vehicles alone account for about a fifth of Czech manufacturing value added. Metal fabrication, electrical equipment and machinery are close to one another in size, and much of their output also goes into vehicles.

Where the industry is

• Car production. Czechia built 1.47 million vehicles in 2025, its second-best year on record. Sector revenue was CZK 1.606 trillion and exports CZK 1.332 trillion, 31% of them to Germany. AutoSAP member companies employed 136,956 people, and their average wage rose 6.2% to CZK 62,947 (AutoSAP, 2026).
• Assembly plants. Škoda in Mladá Boleslav, Kvasiny and Vrchlabí; Toyota in Kolín; Hyundai in Nošovice. This list is taken from company plant locations, not from a statistical source.
• Machinery. Machinery clusters are concentrated in the Moravian-Silesian and Zlín regions (company locations, not regional statistics).
• Enterprise count. Eurostat lists 189,479 manufacturing enterprises for 2023. Most are sole traders, so the number says little about how many factories operate.

The pressure on Czech plants

Labour cost. Hourly labour cost in manufacturing went from €18.4 in 2023 to €20.2 in 2025, +9.8% (Eurostat lc_lci_lev). That is close to the EU-27 rate of 9.0% and the slowest rise among the seven countries. The level matters more than the trend here: after Slovenia, Czechia is the most expensive of the seven, and well above Poland (€17.1) and Hungary (€15.6).

Productivity gap. In 2025 hourly labour cost rose 8.0% and value added per worker 2.6% (our calculation from Eurostat lc_lci_lev, nama_10_a10 and nama_10_a10_e; nominal EUR, different denominators). Whole-economy productivity per hour moved from 78.5 to 79.6, EU-27 = 100 (Eurostat tesem160).

Energy. €0.198/kWh excluding VAT for the 2,000–19,999 MWh band in the second half of 2025, slightly above the EU-27 average of €0.192 (Eurostat nrg_pc_205). AutoSAP names available energy as a limit on the sector's growth.

People. The manufacturing job vacancy rate fell from 3.4% in 2024 to 1.9% in 2025, still above the EU-27 rate of 1.5% (Eurostat jvs_a_rate_r2). AutoSAP lists shortages of skilled workers as the other main limit on growth. Czechia is one of three countries in this report where open positions are a real constraint, not just their cost.

Customers. With 31% of automotive exports going to Germany, Czech suppliers track German production volumes and German purchasing terms closely.

Digital and AI maturity

16.7% of Czech manufacturers with 10+ employees used at least one AI technology in 2025, up from 9.6% in 2024 (Eurostat isoc_eb_ain2). Across all sectors the figure is 17.6%. The Ministry of Industry and Trade headlined that Czech firms had doubled their use of AI. Eurostat broadened its AI questions in 2025, so part of the doubling is a change in measurement. The 2025 level, compared with other countries in the same year, is the reliable part: Czechia is close to the EU-27 manufacturing rate of 17.3%. 71.9% of enterprises reached at least basic digital intensity in 2024 (isoc_e_dii; EU-27 73.7%).

The most detailed national survey is older. A CERGE-EI study for the Confederation of Industry (SP ČR), with data from Q2 2020, found automation in 16% of firms (employing 40% of workers), robotics in 8% (22%) and AI in 4% (15%). Adopters produced about CZK 142 more value per worker per hour and paid CZK 2,000–3,000 more per month. That is a correlation between adopters and productivity, not proof that the technology caused it, and it predates the current AI tools.

What this means for a mid-size plant in Czechia

• Decide which AI use, not whether. With adoption near the EU average, your customers and competitors are already testing tools. The practical question is which process has enough clean data to support a model: machine states, stop reasons, part counts, quality results.
• Check that the data exists before the model. On one constraint line, confirm you can say when the machine stopped, for how long and why, for every shift. If you cannot, fix that first, by hand if necessary.
• Protect scarce people. With vacancy rates above the EU average, both operators and technicians are hard to replace. Use stop-reason data to cut waiting and searching time for maintenance, and to plan changeovers around the crews you have.
• Measure energy per part. Energy availability is on AutoSAP's list of constraints, and prices are above the EU average. Machine-state data lets you separate productive consumption from idle load.
• Compare the local field. Czechia has at least six domestic monitoring and OEE vendors, including East-Gate (PROCE55), Act-in, Effi-system, Comes, Plantyst and IQHUBS, plus integrators and MES suppliers. Disclosure: manufacturingml.com is published by TEEPTRAK SAS, which sells production-monitoring and OEE software. Compare on integration with your ERP, who owns the data, and support in Czech.

Trade fairs, 2026–2027

Sources: bvv.cz/msv; AHK Tschechien. No other 2026–2027 Czech industrial fair dates were confirmed for this release.

Funding

The last OP TAK Digitální podnik – Digitální technologie call closed on 18 February 2026 and a successor call is not confirmed; we track status, eligibility and deadlines, dated and linked to the official agency, on factoryoptimizationai.com/cee/ — check the current call documentation before you plan around any of it.

• CEE 2026 data report: all seven countries compared
• Poland country profile
• Romania country profile
• Hungary country profile
• Slovakia country profile
• Bulgaria country profile
• Slovenia country profile
• CEE Manufacturing Data Pack 2026 (xlsx)

Questions

How productive is Czech manufacturing compared with the EU?

Value added per manufacturing worker was €49.8k in 2025, about 56% of the EU-27 figure of €89.3k (our calculation from Eurostat nama_10_a10 and nama_10_a10_e, nominal EUR). Whole-economy productivity per hour, adjusted for price levels, was 79.6 against an EU-27 index of 100 (Eurostat tesem160, 2025).

Did Czech firms really double their use of AI?

The share of Czech enterprises using AI rose from 11.3% to 17.6% between 2024 and 2025, and in manufacturing from 9.6% to 16.7% (Eurostat isoc_eb_ai, isoc_eb_ain2). Eurostat broadened the questions in 2025, so part of the rise is methodological. The 2025 level is comparable across countries.

How much does an hour of manufacturing labour cost in Czechia?

€20.2 in 2025, up from €18.4 in 2023, a 9.8% rise (Eurostat lc_lci_lev). The EU-27 average was €35.0 and Germany €49.5. Figures are in EUR and include exchange-rate effects.

How big is the Czech car industry?

Czechia produced 1.47 million vehicles in 2025. Sector revenue was CZK 1.606 trillion and exports CZK 1.332 trillion, 31% to Germany (AutoSAP, 2026). Motor vehicles are the largest manufacturing branch, at €13,207m of value added in 2023 (Eurostat nama_10_a64).

Sources

1. Eurostat nama_10_a10 (2024–2025)
2. Eurostat nama_10_a10_e (2024–2025)
3. Eurostat nama_10_a64 (2023)
4. Eurostat sbs_ovw_act (2023)
5. Eurostat isoc_eb_ai (2024–2025)
6. Eurostat isoc_eb_ain2 (2024–2025)
7. Eurostat isoc_e_dii (2024)
8. Eurostat lc_lci_lev (2023–2025)
9. Eurostat jvs_a_rate_r2 (2024–2025)
10. Eurostat tesem160 (2024–2025)
11. Eurostat nrg_pc_205 (2025-S2)
12. AutoSAP via Kurzy.cz: 2025 production and revenue (2026)
13. MPO: České firmy zdvojnásobily využití umělé inteligence
14. Tripartita / SP ČR: CERGE-EI Industry 4.0 study (2020 data)
15. BVV: MSV Brno 2026
16. AHK Tschechien: MSV 6.–9. října 2026

Published by TEEPTRAK SAS, which makes production-monitoring and OEE software, with an office in Bucharest (TEEPTRAK SRL). Figures are sourced on each page. Funding rules change: check the official call documents before you budget.