Shocking wages in Hungary – The reality of the labour market

Do you know how much a priest earns in Hungary? Or a judge, a smith, a parking attendant, a sign language interpreter? You can find out about Hungarian wages per month from napi.hu’s collection.

The National Employment Service published the list of Hungarian wages in different sectors of the labour market. The list includes gross salaries from 2016. The best paying job is the head of a research & development unit with 948,048 Ft (~EUR 3118), which is followed by the head of a business strategic unit with a gross salary of 900,933 Ft (~EUR 2963). The third place was taken by the humane-health care category and its income of 865,785 Ft (~EUR 2847).

Looking at the other end of the list, we can see that coopers and wainwrights have the lowest salaries, around 120,352 Ft (~EUR 396). The situation of glaziers (126,620 ~EUR 416), kitchen helpers (131,214 ~EUR 432), and domestic cleaners and helpers (131,833 ~EUR 434) is only a bit better.

There are also some surprising professions among the worst paid ones: you might not guess that jewellers, goldsmiths, lapidaries earn gross 133,599 forints (~EUR 439), confectioners earn 154,188 forints (~EUR 507), while the income of tourist guides is around 177,548 forints (~EUR 584).

What’s less surprising is that the law maker/ minister/ state secretary category made it into the top 10 with a gross income of 812,984 Ft (~EUR 2674). The leading field is dominated by different manager positions. For instance, I.T. managers work for 839,458 Ft (~EUR 2761), HR managers earn 778,669 Ft (~EUR 2561), financial managers earn 739,654 Ft (~EUR 2433), while sales manager earn 736,055 Ft (~EUR 2421). It’s interesting that not all leaders make this much money, e.g., the head of a unit occupied with cultural activities earns way less, 387,341 Ft (~EUR 1274).

There are also professions in the top 10 which might make you raise your eyebrows. According to the official statistics, alternative curers earn gross 681,957 forints (~EUR 2243), the operators of decontaminating machines earn 544,572 Ft (~EUR 1791), and the armed forces’ posts that require higher education come with a salary of 516,772 Ft (~EUR 1700).