Laundries and dry cleaners are growing in popularity in the Czech Republic, currently up to 10 percent of Czechs use them. This was shown by a survey by Neubert Marketing for the Czech Association for Textile Care (APAČ). The most frequent clients are hotels, restaurants and industrial enterprises. At the same time, the survey confirmed the growing number of self-service laundries – they increased by more than a quarter in five years. At the same time, direct employees are decreasing in laundries. Due to the energy crisis, operations are also investing much more in cost-saving measures, around 25 million crowns this year.
8 to 10 percent of Czechs regularly use the services of laundries and dry cleaners. This is the result of a new survey conducted by Neubert Marketing for the Czech Association for Textile Care (APAČ). Compared to 2019, the operations also registered a 15% increase in demand. The most frequent customers are companies and institutions.
“We primarily see increased interest from hotels and restaurateurs as well as industry behind this. There is a change in behavior and it is no longer common to have a hotel’s own laundry room. In industry, the washing of work clothes is carried out by companies, not by individual employees themselves. Demand for the services of smaller laundries is also increasing, for example from small businesses or restaurants,” says Jana Puškáčová, president of APAČ.
The growing interest in laundries and dry cleaners is currently also confirmed by their operators. “I dare say that the situation is also favorable from the point of view of the selling price. The demand for our services sometimes exceeds our capabilities,” says Ondřej Koudelka, director of Prádelna Koudelka and son, member of the APAČ board. At the same time, the survey showed that customers’ demand is currently mainly driven by cities.
Higher investment in energy-saving solutions
Until recently, energy prices were a big challenge for laundries. “They are high, roughly three times higher than before the energy crisis, but stable. We’ve already gotten used to the fact that it won’t just return to the previous level,” says Jan Chrištof, manager of the laundry Chrištof, II. vice president of APAČ. At the same time, he states that laundries have reflected this fact in the price of services.
The survey also showed that, due to the energy crisis, laundries and dry cleaners have more than doubled their investments in water and energy savings since 2019. While at that time they allocated 10 million crowns for ecological solutions, this year it was already 25 million. According to Jana Puškáčová, today in laundries and dry cleaners it is quite common to encounter, for example, waste heat recovery or more efficient machines with lower consumption.
Other energy-saving solutions are still finding their way. “For example, the technology of recycling waste water has been known in the industry for a long time, but it is still too demanding, expensive and not very effective for wider use. But with interest and experience comes improvement and discounting. I am pleased that companies are solving this issue themselves and are aware of the need to deal with the sustainability of their operations,” adds the president of APAČ.
Higher number of agency and foreign workers
In the Czech Republic, the number of laundries and dry cleaners ranges from 850 to 900. In total, according to data from the survey, they process over 40,000 tons of laundry per month. A new trend is currently also the growing number of self-service laundries, within five years their number has increased by more than a quarter to the current 180 operations. At the same time, self-service operations could also solve one of the current problems in the future – the lack of qualified personnel.
“There is not much interest in this job. At the same time, there is the other side, that is, how we are able to pay it. If a person decides to go to a factory, they work two to three shifts, do not have to think too much about it and is able to achieve a higher salary. The laundry, on the other hand, offers work for one shift, but emphasizes the quality of the work done,” says Ondřej Koudelka.
According to the survey, an increase in agency workers can be observed in laundries and dry cleaners. This is at the expense of direct employees, their number fell from 6,600 to 3,500 between 2019 and 2021. Subsequently, there was a slight recovery, the number of regular workers was 3,900 last year. The increase in the number of agency workers was also reflected in employment from the point of view of national minorities . Since 2019, the share of foreign workers has increased by five percentage points to the current 20 percent.
The complete version of the study is available HERE.
Czech Association for Textile Care
Photo: Vojtěch Veškrna
