Hungarian minimum wage soon to be below Romanian

It is not unlikely that starting from November, the Romanian minimum wage could surpass the Hungarian minimum wage. This has already been predicted two years ago, and now, the situation is really close to changing. Our eastern neighbours might start getting a higher salary, and become wealthier than Hungarians.

According to mfor.hu, last week, the Romanian unions and representatives of the labour market agreed on raising the minimum wage, which could happen surprisingly soon, before January 2019. Romanian finance minister Eugen Teodorovici reported that negotiations about the date of raising the minimum wage would start this week.

According to the agreement, the 1900 RON (375 Euros) minimum wage earned in a full-time job would be increased to 2080 RON (410 Euros), which equals a 9.4% raise. In relation to the Hungarian financial situation, this means that Romanian people would earn approximately 145.000 Hungarian forints (433 Euros) instead of the current 138.000 HUF (412 Euros).

Of course, raising the Hungarian minimum wage is also in question. In some EU countries, it is four times higher than in Hungary. If the raise does not reach 9.4%, the switch with Romanians on the imaginary ranking list remains permanent. Employee representations would stick to the raise started in the last two years; however, at the same time, employers do not support the idea of a double-digit raise, especially since social security taxes are expected to decrease next July instead of January, by 2 percentage points.