Hungary quietly imports workers to cope with the labour crisis

Satwinder Singh caused quite a stir when he arrived in Sarud, a Hungarian village, four years ago. He was among a handful of guest workers who had been brought over from India to work at a dairy farm that was struggling with a labour shortage. Locals were not welcoming.

Bloomberg reported that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban heads and also communicates an anti-immigrant vanguard inside the European Union, which he claims protects from “invaders” and immigrants. The Hungarian government raised walls from the ground and protects them with the most modern technology and police guards.

“He’s erected barbed wire fences to keep out refugees and withhold food from some housed in detention centres. U.S. President Donald Trump says he’s like a twin brother,” wrote the article.

But Hungary and other nations with an anti-immigrant attitude are quietly opening a back door to foreigners and immigrants. Central and Eastern Europe are among the fastest-growing parts of the European Union, and with the departure of millions of workers to Europe’s richer West, labour forces cannot meet companies’ demands. In recent years, governments were willing to allow in white, Christian workers from places such as Ukraine and Belarus, but those people have already left these countries. Now, to solve the problem of the labour shortage, migrants from other corners of the world have begun to arrive.