Huge labour shortage in Hungary – These companies would pay a lot to employees

The financial sector is looking to fill thousands of jobs. The wage is high, last fall the average gross was €1,960, and it is increasing quickly, but there are still no applicants.

The highest-paid sector is looking for thousands of employees. According to the Central Statistics Office, gross average earnings in the financial sector exceeded €1,960 in October last year, which was 16 per cent higher than the year before. This means that an average employee in the sector gets over €1,305 each month, even without being entitled to any benefits, for children, for instance, reported Napi.hu.

Despite financial companies paying more to their employees, they struggle with a continuous shortage of workers. At the moment, 1256 job advertisements can be found on the websites of major Hungarian banks. The fewest new positions are advertised by CIB, with 87 job ads on its website, MKB is looking for 97 people, and the other big banks have over 100 ads. Most of the new staff would be recruited by Takarékbank, with 287 open positions to fill.

Jobs are diverse. There are still many IT jobs, but there are open positions in almost all areas of banking. It seems that retail and corporate lending is booming, banks are looking for hundreds of staff to handle such matters, but there are also a lot of job offers in the field of account management. Most open positions are in Budapest, but there are also opportunities in other cities.

According to KSH’s data, despite high and rising wages, the number of employees in the financial sector is declining rapidly. At the end of the third quarter of last year, only 74,200 people were employed in this sector, while in the previous year, there were 95,000. Men are in the majority in the top management positions, but the financial sector is more feminine, with nearly three-fifths of female employees.

The data of the National Bank of Hungary (MNB) contradict KSH’s, as the number of bank employees at the central bank is continuously increasing, reaching more than 39,800 last October. The number of bank employees was at its peak at the end of 2008 when credit institutions employed almost 44,000 people. By the end of 2014, this number was reduced to 37,817. Measures such as early repayment and forint conversion may also have played a role. The branch network has also decreased drastically, and thousands of units closed since 2013.

MNB does not publish regular data on the number of employees in other financial sectors, but it was recently reported that 41,700 people worked in the insurance brokerage market in 2008, which went down to 27,000 today. Withdrawal of state subsidies for housing savings and the termination of Magyar Posta’s Investment Service Provider, jointly owned by Magyar Posta and Takarékbank, were likely to have a negative impact on the number of employees in the sector as well.

Insurance companies always welcome good salespeople, but the sector does not only look for people in agent positions. There are 150 open positions at the largest insurance companies alone. They are also in need of IT professionals, but they are also looking for a lot of new people in the risk management, claims management, claims assessment and customer relations areas.

Most job offers are at the big companies, with Generali offering 31 job positions, Aegon 29, and NN – who are just starting in the property insurance industry – 25. Of course, the positions include part-time jobs as well as work for students.

Source: napi.hu