Guest workers cause problems at Hungary’s best-known spa

The locals fear that the tourism of Hajdúszoboszló could be affected by the arrival of guest workers for the construction of gigantic projects in Debrecen.

Guest workers in Hajdúszoboszló

A workers’ hotel is already under construction in the town as a private investment. The county government office has given permission for this without informing the municipality. The appearance of the hostels was brought to the attention of one of the MPs, who wrote an angry post on social media, which he later deleted.

“We have practically banned the construction of workers’ hostels in almost the entire city. The way I like to say it is that there hasn’t been this ban earlier because, let’s say, there’s no ban on building a spaceport either, because who would have thought to put that in here?”, said Kálmán Jónás, a local government representative, to ATV News.

No more workers’ hostels

The municipality has asked room rental companies not to set up hostels for guest workers in the city. The problem is that few are doing this because it is a secure source of income.

In Hungary, in Hajdú-Bihar county, the large influx of foreigners already posed an issue in January 2022. In Hajdúnánás, locals were scared because they thought the Indian guest workers staying there were migrants. They later calmed down when they learned that it was not illegal immigrants who had arrived in the town but guest workers from MOL company who had been put up in a local guesthouse.

A contradictory situation

“We have never invited anyone to live here with us, either as a guest worker or for any other reason,” said Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister in 2017. The Hungarian government has previously pursued an anti-immigration policy on several occasions, telex.hu reports.

Recently, however, Fidesz has announced several investments in the Debrecen and Hajdúszoboszló area. BMW is building an automotive plant in the area, while two Chinese companies are building battery factories. It is said in the announcement that this will create many jobs, but not that these jobs will be filled by guest workers from outside the EU because of the Hungarian labour shortage.

Under the Hungarian government’s new guest worker law, a guest worker can stay for 2+1 years, but this is futile if they are constantly changing. Locals are outraged that while the government is attacking Brussels and the EU over the mandatory resettlement quota for migrants, the party itself is bringing in projects to attract tens of thousands of guest workers to Hungary.