Hungary, the country of crazy wages

The government chose not to raise wages

The average salary of the public service employees is 314,800 HUF (EUR 1000). However, only government officials can get this salary, since their payment is calculated according to their life career model. Those employees who are paid according to the public service pay scale

can never reach this income.

Thus, it can be an option for a young university-graduate to accept Aldi’s 300 thousand HUF as a starting gross salary. According to the official PS pay scale, researchers having an academic degree can only reach this income around their sixties.

This is because the government has not changed the sums of the pay scale since 2008. The scale contains 10 pay classes. Career advancement depends on the number of the years spent working in the PS sector. Despite the government raising the minimum wage and guaranteeing minimum income several times,

the sums of the PS pay scale remained the same.

Thus, these employees were unable to get the guaranteed minimum wage. In order to avoid shame, the government prescribed that nobody can get lower salaries than the minimum wage. Therefore, those who would get lower salaries than the minimum receive payment completion.

Crazy wages: a senior lecturer receives less than a shopkeeper

As a result, those who have only basic education and those who already have an academic degree receive the same sum. The latter’s salary did not change while the completion increases the former’s. Moreover, in half of the pay scales