Opposition parties slam importing Asian guest workers: Hungarians should get the jobs

There is no need to import guest workers to fill jobs in Hungary, opposition Mi Hazánk labour spokesman János Lantos said on Friday in response to recent remarks by Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.

Szijjártó said that the government supported the import of guest workers in order to protect jobs in Hungary. Lantos said Mi Hazánk rejected the government’s economic policy which supported “big capital”. The party instead called for Hungary’s processing industry and SMEs that raise wages to receive support, he added. If current trends continue, he said, soon no Hungarians would be getting jobs, he said, adding: “What makes a Chinese battery plant a Hungarian workplace if construction is carried out by non-Hungarians?”

Lantos said that serving global capitalism was more important to the Hungarian government than protecting Hungarian jobs. Opposition Jobbik said that the government was planning to import “migrant workers from the east” whereas Jobbik was calling for western wages and everyone to succeed in their place of birth.

Deputy group leader Koloman Brenner said that “the arrival of a large number of people from an alien culture would upset the cultural balance … [and] traditional way of life”. The “masses of migrants” consisting mostly of men without accompanying females pose a security threat, he added. They take work away from Hungarians because they accept lower wages which brings down the wages for Hungarian workers, too, he said.

Read also:

• Hungarian government paves the way for hundreds of thousands of guest workers
• Guest workers cause problems at Hungary’s best-known spa