Microsoft Word Thesis Gent (1). doc

6.2.3 Czech Republic unemployment rate 
The labor force in a country encompasses all the people that are employed and those 
people that are able to work but are unemployed. The people that are not accounted to 
be in labor force are people serving in military, people which are retired and those who 
not seeking to work. Thus, based on this, the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic 
during the period of 2002 to 2011 the average unemployment rate was 6.9 percent, 
reaching the highest level of unemployment at 8.4 percent in the first six months of 
2004, while the lowest level of unemployment was at 4.3 percent in the third quarter of 
2008. Specifically
in the last quarter of 2011 the unemployment rate was 6.7 percent. 

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6.2.4 Czech koruna exchange rate (CZK/USD) 
The spot exchange rate of Czech Koruna, shows the worthiness of one currency, in this 
case USD, in terms of the other currency that is CZK, which is quoted and exchanged 
in the same day. While the Czech Koruna forward rate is quoted as today in order to be 
delivered and paid in a future date. The Czech Koruna exchange rate against dollar on 
average was 22.62 in the period of 2002 to 2011, where the highest rate was in the first 
quarter of 2002 at 36.2, while the lowest was in the second quarter of 2008 at 15.9. 
Specifically, in the last quarter of 2011 this exchange was at 18.7. 
6.2.5 Czech Republic interest rate 
The Central Bank in a country play an important role as they impact the increase or 
decrease of the interest rate of their currency, due to the rate of various macroeconomic 
variables such as, inflation, unemployment, currency, thus overall economic 
performance. 
The CNB is the institution that comes up with the interest rates in the Czech Republic, 
meaning that it is the discount rate that the commercial banks use to place their excess 
fund daily with CNB. In the period of 2002 to 2011 the average rate of long-term 
interest rate
was 4.3 percent, which was the highest in the first quarter of 2002 at 5.4 
percent, while the lowest rate was in the third quarter of 2005 at 3.3 percent. 
Specifically, the long-term interest rate in the last quarter of 2011 was 3.5 percent.