State secretary: Job protection scheme leaves EUR 1.6bn with employers

Budapest, February 27 (MTI) – Since its 2013 launch, the government’s job protection scheme has saved employers an estimated 500 billion forints (EUR 1.6bn); the programme involved 900,000 employees in 2016, state secretary Páter Cseresnyás said in a press briefing on Monday.

For employing disadvantaged workers, employers received 97 billion, 125 billion, 130 billion and 145 billion forints in “work place protection subsidies” in the years 2013-2016 respectively. Disadvantaged workers are typically employees over 55 years of age, long-term unemployed and/or working in agriculture, Cseresnyés said. The subsidy was used mostly in the employment of over-55s, with an average of 340,000 work places assisted monthly in 2016, he said.

Talking about youth unemployment, the state secretary stressed that the employment rate of young people has grown to almost 30 percent from under 20 percent in 2010. The work place protection scheme supported an average of 170 000 workers below 25 years of age monthly in 2016, he said. Unemployment among the young has dropped to 11.1 percent from nearly 30 percent in 2010, he said.

Reacting to the Central Statistical Office’s (KSH) employment data between November 2016-January 2017, Cseresnyés said: while the number of employees in the private sector grew, that in the public sector shrank by 17,000. The employees leaving the public sector presumably find work in the private sector, Cseresnyés said.

Hungary’s 4,3 percent rate of overall unemployment puts the country to third place among the EU countries, with only Germany and the Czech Republic preceding it, Cseresnyés said.

Source: MTI