120 thousand guest workers in Hungary, Gyurcsány’s DK outraged – UPDATED
The opposition Democratic Coalition on Tuesday called for an immediate ban of the “unlawful import” of guest workers from outside the European Union.
DK’s Ferenc Varga, who sits in parliament as an independent, told a press conference that the law on guest workers which entered force this year was “a scam”.
In a recent interview, Sándor Czomba, the economy ministry state secretary in charge of employment policy, “admitted that 120,000 guest workers were imported from outside the EU”, the DK politician said, noting that the law stipulates that the number of guest workers must not exceed the number of unfilled jobs at the end of the previous year. According to 24.hu, 40 thousand guest workers came from Ukraine, 16 thousand from Vietnam, while 10 thousand from the Phillipines.
Central Statistical Office (KSH) figures show that in the third quarter of last year almost 80,000 jobs went unfilled, Varga said, insisting this meant that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “and his people have unlawfully roped in 40,000 guest workers”.
He vowed to submit a written question to the government regarding how many guest workers would be imported to Hungary this year and why Hungarians were not given the jobs available.
Ruling Fidesz in response said that the DK party led by Ferenc Gyurcsany and the “dollar left” tried again “to mislead” Hungarians with their statements. Beside allowing illegal migrants and terrorism into Hungary, “they are now stoking up fear in Hungarians by talking about the import of illegal guest workers in the country,” Fidesz said in a statement.
It cited recent legislation which has tightened the protection of the employment of Hungarians, by setting a quota on the number of third country guest workers who can be employed in Hungary. “Their number in 2023 was 62,000 and this was never exceeded, as is required by law,” the party said, calling on DK “to stop misleading the public”.
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Consistently high levels of emigration has led to a labour market where the balance of power was in favour of the employee who could (or whose trade union could) negotiate strong pay rises, meeting or even exceeding inflation. Combined with the generally high inflationary environment, these pay rises and labour shortages were starting to make Hungary uncompetitive. The obvious solution would lie in the large pool of often young and highly educated Hungarians living overseas whom the government makes little to no effort to communicate with and to encourage their return. Enormous sums of money are spent on sports stadiums and hosting international conferences but zero financial incentives are offered to this Hungarian diaspora to encourage their return. I should know, I’m one of this diaspora looking at Hungary from abroad, aghast at how little effort is being expended in bringing home Hungarians, the government electing instead to dilute the Hungarian population with foreign workers. The government chooses to open the taps of imported labour, the success of which will inevitably be limited by a lack of language knowledge but that doesn’t matter, more important from the government’s perspective is that it tempers any potential future pay rises and puts the boot on the employer’s foot, ensuring that the Hungarian workforce should feel vulnerable and unable to assert themselves versus unlimited quantities of much cheaper foreign labour.
Lovely question of the opposition to the prime minister, but more lovely will be to see the face of the prime minister laughing at the people who voted for him when he was using all those banners such as “stop migration” on the streets. Unfortunately, the Fidesz supporters can not see that Fidesz is playing with the voters. Immigrants, Brussels, Ukraine, them government always find someone to blame and complain about it.