Acute Hungarian labor shortage: number of people missing counted

As privátbankár.hu reports, the shortage of workers is a developing problem in Hungary. According to the estimations, the Hungarian corporations could employ 340,000 more people. What companies are affected the most? What is the biggest problem? Where is the affect felt the least?

There have been reports on the problem of the shortage of workers, for months. It is known for a while how much damage it causes for the construction industry. The situation is even worse in the stores: mostly clerks are standing at the cash-desk.

According to the data, a new record was born in the third quarter of the year, the number of job vacancies has increased to 41,000 in the competition sphere, so this is how many people would be able to start immediately at the companies, while the Confederation of Hungarian Employers and Industrials counts with even more, 100,000-200,000 vacancies.

Moreover, the November survey of GKI (Economic Research Co.) topped even this result. According to this, the largest shortage of workers appears at companies with more than 250 employees (9% of the existing headcount could be employed). It means that altogether 63,000 potential workers can be employed by these companies.

The problem is just as serious at companies with 51-150 employees, they have reported shortage of 36,700 people (this is the 12% of the present headcount). The shortage is 9% at companies with 20-50 people and 6% with 150-250 people. So it can be learnt from the survey that the business sector with more than 20 workers (employing 1.4 million workers in the national economy) could employ 133,000 more people.

The necessary number of workers at different sizes of companies (needed number / number of employees) Source: GKI

Labour is most needed at the companies below 20 people; the quarter of the existing headcount could be employed. These companies are usually possessed by Hungarian owner circles, work for mainly the Hungarian market, and are really expense-sensitive. This is why they cannot keep the workers as easily; they are not really capable to increase wages frequently.

Companies above five, but below 20 people, employ nearly 600,000 workers. Taking this into consideration the shortage of workers is nearly 283,000 people. But at the same time, if the number of the employees at companies with less than five people is estimated to be 700,000, and it is still assumed that the ratio of the shortage is similar, then 340,000 people are missing from the Hungarian corporations. It can be seen in the departmental fragments that the light industry (32%) and the business services (23%) are affected the most.

Needed headcount (blue) in different departments in the degree of the average headcount (business, commerce, building, processing, engineering, metal, chemical, light and finally food industry on the top) Source: GKI

The engineering, metals, food industry and commerce are among the moderately affected departments, where the ratio of the shortage is 12-16%. The chemical industry is affected the least.

Photo: KSH / Privátbankár

Copy editor: bm

Source: privatbankar.hu