Has the decline in coal mining had a major impact on unemployment in active mining areas Ostrava-Karvina district?

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to analyse the impact of gradual restructuring of hard coal industry and the associated closure of mines on unemployment of population in the active parts of the Ostrava-Karviná mining district, i.e. mainly in Karviná and Frýdek-Místek regions over the last 10 years. The analysis focuses on gradual reduction of mining, mine closures, redundancies, the overall development of coal company employment and the impact of decline in mining on the labour market in regions concerned. The thesis combines theoretical approaches to the labour market and unemployment with empirical data analysis involving time-series data subjected to econometric regression models. Results of this analysis show that mine closures and gradual layoffs of workers at the coal company OKD, a.s. had a negligible impact on the overall unemployment rate in the districts, so the hypothesis was not confirmed. One of the main conclusions of this thesis is that a significant number of the laid-off miners found employment in other industrial sectors, which reduced the pressure on the local labour market. This development was most likely made possible by the support of the Moravian-Silesian Region, government institutions and also by the initiatives of the coal company OKD, a.s. itself through specific programmes aimed at retraining employees.