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Large supermarkets in the Czech Republic are struggling with a serious shortage of employees, caused by record low unemployment. According to the website Novinky.cz, a lack of employees has forced the British supermarket chain Tesco to cut opening hours in its Czech stores.

The Czech Republic produced over 44 million litres of ice cream last year, which is the highest figure since 2004. Czechs have surpassed other EU countries, such as Greece or Croatia, Czech Radio reported on Wednesday, citing data released by the European Union’s statistics office, Eurostat. Europe’s biggest producer of ice-cream is Germany, followed by Italy and France.

A new government scheme providing relatively cheap loans to young people to buy or renovate homes has just been launched. However, with prices continuing to soar many may still find it difficult to find suitable properties.

Boeing’s gigantic 787 Dreamliner is set to launch regular service from Václav Havel Airport Prague. The Dreamliner, which has a capacity for 254 passengers, will be deployed by Qatari Airways on the route from Prague to Doha as of October 28, Prague’s Václav Havel Airport informed in a press release on Monday.

Official estimates released on Monday suggest that drought will hit the Czech Republic’s 2018 grain harvest quite hard, causing a 7.5 percent decline in yield compared to last year. And that could well have a knock-on effect on the price of bread.

Burčák is a fermented young wine that annually marks the start of the grape-harvesting season. And, like many other products dependent on the weather, it arrived a fortnight early this year.

The second-largest online grocer in the Czech Republic, Rohlik.cz has reported its first annual profit since its establishment in 2014, the Czech News Agency reported on Thursday. The retailer expects to see a turnover of 2.5 billion crowns in 2018 and plans to double that figure next year.

The Supreme Audit Office has criticized the Czech system of granting subsidies in the sphere of research, development and innovation as ineffective. The office claims that despite a growing amount of funds channelled into these areas, there are few registered patents and there is a clear lack of cooperation between the private and public sectors.

Few Czechs regularly work from home, according to the latest Eurostat figures. Indeed, less than 4.0 percent of Czech employees conduct work business from their place of residence. That is beneath the EU average and far lower than in neighbouring Austria, where the figure stands at 9.5 percent.

The weakening crown coupled with robust wage growth could lead Czech central bankers to consider the first back-to-back increase in interest rates in over a decade at their next policy-setting meeting, the Bloomberg news agency reported on Tuesday, citing interviews with two board members keen to cool the overheating economy.