Hungary’s unemployment rate at its lowest point!

Hungary’s three-month rolling average jobless rate was 3.4 percent in March-May, edging down from 3.5 percent in the previous three-month period and down from 3.7 percent twelve months earlier, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) said on Thursday.

The rate covers unemployment among 15-74 year-olds.

In absolute terms, there were 160,400 unemployed, 2,000 fewer than in the previous period and down 10,300 from a year earlier.

The unemployment rate in the 15-24 age group stood at 11.1 percent, up 2.4 percentage points compared with the base period. The unemployed in this age group account for more than one-fifth of all jobless, KSH noted.

The unemployment rate in the 25-54 age group was down at 3.0 percent, and the rate in the 55-74 age group dropped to 2.3 percent.

Out-of-work Hungarians spent about 13.9 months on average looking for employment during the period, and 36.7 percent of the unemployed had been seeking work for one year or longer.

The number of employed stood at 4,500,400 among 15-74-year-olds, 43,300 or 1.0 percent more than in the same period a year earlier. The employment rate was 60.7 percent, up 0.8 of a percentage point.

The number of employed included 113,600 Hungarians in fostered work programmes and 115,500 working abroad. The number of those employed on the domestic primary labour market rose 2.0 percent from a year earlier to 4,271,200, while the number of fostered workers dropped 29.7 percent. The number of those working abroad was up 7.0 percent.