Glossary

Pay system (systém odměňování)

A written description of how an employer pays: the form, components and grading of pay and the division of jobs into groups by value of work. Under the draft amendment, every Czech employer must have one from 1 January 2027, in an internal regulation or a collective agreement (§ 109a Labour Code).

§ 109a Labour Code·1 January 2027

A pay system is not a salary table. It is the rule by which pay is set — above all a catalogue of job groups stating, for each group, why it sits where it does. Pay is then granted on the basis of the system; differences within a group can be justified by performance and results. The fine for a missing system is up to CZK 1,000,000 under the draft.

Job groups (skupiny prací)

The division of the jobs performed at an employer into groups graded by value of work. The type of work is assessed, not the performance of an individual. Jobs in the same group are ‘work of equal value’ for equal-pay purposes.

§ 109a(2) Labour Code·1 January 2027

Job groups underpin everything else: averages and gaps are computed by group, employees are answered by group and the report to the Ministry is filed by group. A company of 45 typically has 6–9 groups.

Value of work (hodnota práce)

The measure by which jobs are ranked into groups; under the draft it follows from three criteria — complexity, responsibility and demands. Market value and individual performance may not be criteria. The explanatory memorandum expressly excludes the market value of work as a criterion (§ 109(4)).

§ 109a(2) Labour Code·1 January 2027

The EU Directive uses four criteria (skills, effort, responsibility, working conditions); the Czech draft expresses them as three, with working conditions considered within them. Value of work is set before looking at salaries.

Complexity, responsibility, demands

The three statutory criteria of job value. Complexity covers qualifications and difficulty of tasks, responsibility the consequences of decisions for results, people and damage, demands the physical and mental load and working conditions.

§ 109a(2) · § 110 Labour Code·1 January 2027

The list is exhaustive: nothing else (market value, absence, accident-free record) may be added. Soft skills are not a separate criterion; they run through all three.

Internal regulation (vnitřní předpis)

A unilateral written document by which the employer sets employees' rights; under the draft it is one of the two forms a pay system must take (the other being a collective agreement).

§ 305 · § 109a Labour Code·1 January 2027

An internal pay-system regulation contains the purpose, pay components, how pay is set, the catalogue of job groups with justification and a review clause. It must be accessible to employees.

Pay information for applicants

The duty to demonstrably inform an applicant of the minimum pay and other benefits before the contract is concluded — and a ban on asking about their current or previous pay.

§ 30(2) and (3) Labour Code·1 January 2027

Stating pay in the job advertisement satisfies the duty but is not the only way. You may ask about the applicant's pay expectations. The fine for asking about pay history is up to CZK 200,000 under the draft.

Employees' right to pay information

From 1 January 2028 an employee may request in writing, once a year, their own pay and the average pay in their job group by gender, annually and hourly; the employer replies within two months.

§ 306b Labour Code·1 January 2028

Once a year the employer must inform all employees of this right. Where the average would reveal an individual's pay (a small group), that part goes to a trade union designated by the employee instead.

Annual work unit (roční pracovní jednotka)

The unit in which employer size is measured for the report by job groups and the pay assessment: the arithmetic mean of monthly work units over 12 months; a full-time job = 1, part-time work and agreements count as fractions, agency workers count towards the user. It is computed from JMHZ data.

Pay-gap report by job groups

A report that employers with 150 or more annual work units (100 or more from 2031) file with the Ministry via the data box by 30 April, on the prescribed form; it shows gaps in average pay between women and men by job group in four values (annual and hourly, basic and supplementary components). First in 2028 for 2027; 150–249 again in 2030 and every three years thereafter.

§ 37i Labour Inspection Act·1 January 2028

Most indicators are computed by the Ministry itself from the employer's monthly filing; the employer prepares only the part by job groups. Employers with 250+ file annually, 150–249 every three years.

Pay assessment

A written assessment with employee representatives required when the gap in average hourly pay between women and men in any job group reaches at least 5 %, is not objectively justified and is not remedied within six months. It applies only to employers who file the report by job groups.

§ 287a–287e Labour Code·1 January 2028

The threshold is measured in gross hourly pay including other benefits, by job group.

Burden of proof in equal-pay disputes

Where an employer has breached transparency duties (for example, has no pay system), it must itself prove in court that no breach of equal treatment occurred.

§ 133a(5) Civil Procedure Code (draft)·1 January 2027

This is why documentation matters more than the result.

KaHoP — the Ministry's job-value calculator

A free tool of the Czech Ministry of Labour (spreadsheet with a manual) for assessing job value and building job groups; pilot version 1.0.13 works with four assessment areas; according to the explanatory memorandum, working conditions are reflected within the three statutory criteria, and the law has no separate area of “knowledge and skills”.

voluntary Ministry tool

It yields job groups but not the internal regulation, justifications, employee replies or a trail of decisions.

Evidence trail

An immutable record of who decided what and when while building the pay system: what the system proposed, what a person accepted unchanged, what they changed and what they decided themselves.

practice, not a statutory term

Confirming a proposal without change is a decision, not its absence.

Parliamentary print 300 (sněmovní tisk 300)

The Government bill amending the Labour Code and the Labour Inspection Act, distributed to deputies on 8 September 2026; it contains the explanatory memorandum, outlines of four implementing regulations and the transposition table for Directive (EU) 2023/970.