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“Hungarian dream” mostly attracts underqualified foreign workers
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According to the latest state reports, the number of foreigners working in Hungary has increased fivefold since 2016. Considering the proportion of workers by nationality, the majority of third-country workers have come from Ukraine.
The coronavirus pandemic has created a potentially lasting imprint on EU labour markets. During the last years, the Hungarian economy has been suffering from a labour shortage, posing challenges to employers across various sectors. In contrast to this, approximately 100,000 people have lost their jobs due to the economic shutdown. Due to the lower wages, easier overtime, greater vulnerability, many employers opt for foreign workers, and the government has not yet taken any measures that would urge them to employ Hungarians, 24 reported.
The reports of the National Employment Service confirm that
in the last years, an overwhelming majority of mostly underqualified Ukrainians have come to Hungary intending to get a job.
Hungarian labour shortage and the solutions
Statistics show that a significant part of the foreign workers coming to Hungary is underqualified, so they take jobs with low added value, such as factory assembly.
The country experienced the most significant increase in the number of foreign workers in 2018, but neither the National Employment Service nor the government provided data about the exact amount of foreign employees for a long time.
Since 2017, third-country nationals coming to Hungary with the intention of getting a job do not have to apply for a residence permit if the employer registers them. The effect of this measure can be clearly seen in the figure above. National Employment Service data shows that most of the foreign workers arrived from Ukraine and Serbia.
Concerning the global embeddedness of the Hungarian economy, the country has a high per capita stock of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in proportion to GDP for Central and Eastern Europe and the share of foreign-controlled, non-financial corporations in GDP is more than double the EU average.
