Hungary jobless rate back at 4%

Hungary’s jobless rate was 4 percent in June, up from 3.9 percent in the previous month, the Central Statistical Office (KSH) said on Wednesday.

The rate covering 15-74 year-olds fell by 1 percentage point from the previous year’s June.

Fully 193,000 were jobless, up 4,000 from the previous month.

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Meanwhile, on the employment side, the number of people with a job came to 4,692,000, up 85,000 from the previous month and by 98,000 compared with same month a year earlier.

Among 15-64 year-olds, the employment rate was 74.1 percent, up 1.5 percentage points from May and 2.5 percentage points from June the previous year.

In the three-month period of April-June, the number of employees averaging 4,619,000 increased by 63,000 from the same period last year.

Sándor Bodó, state secretary for employment policy at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM), after the data release told public broadcaster M1 that the labour market was “stable” and that the main figures were “encouraging”.

He said the employment numbers were “unprecedented”, and he welcomed the increase both on the previous month and the previous year, adding that government measures to protect and create jobs were behind the positive data. Bodó noted that the employment rate had risen by more than 2 percent year on year.

He said that whereas the domestic labour market was stable, there were “problems abroad”, however.

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Source: MTI