Orbán government fills the labour market with thousands of Asian workers, despite propaganda

It is nothing new that the Orbán government is actively trying to turn Hungary into one of the world’s biggest battery powers. Bigger and bigger battery manufacturing investments keep coming to Hungary. But who will fill these vacant positions under such dangerous circumstances? Mostly guest workers from third-world countries.

There has been a trend for some years now that it is no longer possible to find domestic labour for the lowest-paid jobs. Just as Hungarians migrate to the West to do the jobs that Western Europeans don’t want, workers from even poorer countries are now coming to Hungary to do jobs that no one wants in Hungary. In reality, working in battery factories is hardly attractive to Hungarian workers. According to research cited by Andrea Éltető, senior research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, to Qubit, since the covid pandemic, people are less willing to accept poor quality or unsafe jobs.

Where do guest workers come from?

The government first allowed guest workers from Ukraine and Serbia to come to Hungary in 2016. In 2022, it made it easier to recruit guest workers from a further 9 countries: the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mongolia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia and Montenegro. This summer, it made it easier to recruit from 8 more countries, including Brazil, Colombia and Russia.

According to Ákos Jáhny, Managing Director of Get Work Trend Ltd., “it is the result of a lot of research in foreign and domestic affairs” why these countries were chosen. “A wide variety of ethnic groups and nationalities have been examined culturally and religiously, and in terms of attitudes to work.” In many ways, the Philippines is the most ideal. “Even if it is difficult to say, we also had to take into account that we had to choose countries where the Hungarian wage level is still attractive,” Jáhny added.

“These jobs are soul-sucking; there is a high probability that anyone who can do it will quit at the first opportunity,” said Andrea Éltető. “Battery factory work is characterised by a high degree of automation on the one hand, and monotony on the other, so pushing buttons or doing the same few movements for 12 hours in three shifts. For this reason, these jobs are very unattractive to European and domestic workers.”

Guest workers have all the motivation to work

“On the production line, [the guest workers] are rational, they are more organised, they see the problems, and they have no motivation to lie sick alone in a workers’ shelter. They would rather go to the factory and work. It follows that they are seen as more efficient. But they are just as human, they are fallible, they can be sick and often they are cold, even in 20 Celsius degrees,” Jáhny said.

Jáhny stressed that they are able to recruit mainly from countries where even Hungarian salaries are considered to be outstanding. “Sometimes couples leave their children at home with their grandparents and come to work here because the earning potential in Hungary is two to three times higher than in their home country. If two earners come, it makes a huge difference to the family budget back home. They really come to work and not to take advantage of the social system.”

Guest workers much more skilled than factories need

Jáhny told Qubit: “If we are looking for people with English language skills for manual labour, up to 10,000 people from the Philippines apply for a single advertisement, while in Hungary, it is only ten at most. In the case of guest workers, we hire the 50 we need out of 10,000, so the best come. They have a minimum of secondary education and up to 30% have a university degree. They are much more highly qualified than the kind of work they have to do here.”

No, guest workers will not take away Hungarians’ jobs

According to Jáhny, “most factories, if they decide to employ a third-country national, seek the opinion and agreement of the unions. They also don’t want to have problems within the factory with foreigners coming in. On the contrary, they want to convince Hungarian workers that it is not their job that is being taken away, and that they will not have to work overtime for six weeks, but can work normally.”

According to economist Márton Czirfusz, “the anti-migrant propaganda of the Orbán government in recent years has shifted the management of potential local conflicts onto the employing company [of guest workers] or its trade union, or even the local mayor of the municipality where the guest workers are being housed.”

Thus, the Orbán government seems to be belying itself: after the loud and prominent anti-migrant propaganda of recent years, it is letting jobs that do not pay enough for Hungarians to make a living exist so they have to be carried out by guest workers. And what do guest workers get in many parts of the country for simply existing and working here? Anti-migrant sentiments and many Hungarians being “afraid” of them for no real reason other than the propaganda they have been hearing for the past few years.

Read also:

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• Number of foreign workers in Hungary booms