Hundreds of thousands will leave Hungary in the next few years

About 600,000 Hungarians are living abroad, and according to portfolio.hu another 600,000 are planning to emigrate in the next few years. 

There have been several different estimations of the number of Hungarians living abroad, and there is no way to say anything for sure. Every method they use gives a different answer, so as of now it is estimated that anywhere between 120 to 637 thousand Hungarians are living outside of Hungary. Portfolio.hu is still of the opinion that the number of Hungarians living in the UK is seriously underestimated: official statistics say about 100,000 but portfolio.hu thinks that number has already doubled in the past years. 

Based on a micro-census done by the KSH, asking families if they have anyone from their household who moved abroad, they estimate 306,000 Hungarians living abroad: 258,790 of these live there permanently, while 47,500 has spent less than a year abroad. 

According to the same micro-census, 2.6% of Hungarians (242,000) moved abroad for at least a year. 130,000 of these emigrated after the year 2000. At the last census in 2011 only 2.1% of the population said that they had been living abroad for a time. 

What do we know about the Hungarians who chose to live abroad?

• Unsurprisingly younger generations move abroad more often: most who emigrate are between 25-45 years old. 
• The countries where most Hungarians want to move are: Germany, the UK and Austria
• Skilled workers and those with higher education are the two groups that most often leave our country, although the latter usually cannot get a job in their chosen field 
• Most people emigrate to find work abroad

Another interesting tidbit: 30% of those working abroad and 41% of those who are returning to Hungary have a higher education. If we are looking at the whole Hungarian population, the percentage of those having a higher education degree is only 22%. 

According to the micro census, 71% of the emigrated Hungarians live in the top 3 countries (Germany, the UK, Austria) and 57% of those who are returning after a time spent working abroad are from these countries.