Ratio of Hungarians working abroad huge but ‘not significant’?

Pro-government daily newspaper Magyar Idők reports that 325,000 Hungarians work in another EU country, a low number in regional comparison.

The daily, citing Eurostat statistics on Tuesday, noted that 5.2 percent of the 20-64 age group work in another EU country, making

Hungary the 13th highest exporter of workers out of 28 EU member states.

It is only western EU countries plus Cyprus, Slovenia and the Czech Republic that have lower rates of emigrant workers, the paper said.

Piroska Szalai, head of the board of the Budapest Enterprise Development Foundation, told the paper that many of the 325,000 people in the 20-64 age group working abroad also commute, with 75,000-80,000 travelling to Austria and back.

The UK’s statistical office says 98,000 Hungarians work in Britain. Read more details HERE.

Currently, there are eight times as many Romanians working abroad as Hungarians.

The number of Hungarians working abroad amounted to 70,000 before the change in political system.

This broke through the 100,000 mark in the early 2000s and rose significantly after 2012.

This has much more to do with the completely open labour market within the EU than with the country’s economic performance, she said. Since 2016, the rate of increase has slowed sharply, she added.

As we wrote about the new OECD findings, Hungary is at the very bottom of the list in terms of salary. The country’s situation is different regarding gross and net earnings. Read more HERE.

Source: MTI