Survey: Hungarian Pay Gap 25-fold

Budapest, October 6 (MTI) – The gap between the lowest and highest wages in Hungary is 25-fold, according to a survey for international personnel services provider Trenkwalder.

The survey seen by MTI on Monday is based on information collected from 46,000 employees in June.

The lowest-paid blue-collar employees receive an average 114,000 forints (EUR 370) monthly basic wage before tax and the highest-paid employees receive 2.8 million forints (EUR 9030) a month, it showed. In low-paid categories the deviation from the average is only around 10-15 percent, whereas in the high-paid categories it is 25-30 percent of the basic wage.

Employees in technical jobs and in sales and marketing are generally better paid, whereas those working in production and administrative jobs get 4-8 percent less than average.

Wages are generally highest in Budapest, central and western Hungary and lowest in the north and the north-east.

International companies pay on average 10 percent more than Hungarian-owned companies but in some areas the difference is as high as 20 percent. Additionally, wages are generally higher in larger companies.

Companies involved in the survey plan to increase wages by 3-4 percent this year. Larger than average growth is expected in the vehicle and electronics industries and lower than average in trade and construction.

As many as 43 percent of the companies surveyed said they had a good financial outlook, as against 28 percent last year. Trenkwalder HR services manager Monika Molnar said this was good news for employees because company performance has a strong influence on wage-hike plans.

Photo:  gratisography.com

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters