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How is it possible that almost 1 million people do not work in Hungary?
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In Hungary, almost a tenth of the population is economically inactive, which means that 900,000 Hungarians are outside of the labour market. This proportion is quite significant compared to the EU average, but what is the reason behind it, and which gender is most affected?
According to the latest Eurostat report, the percentage of the total working-age population (aged 15-64) shows a declining trend in the labour market of the European Union. During the last decade, the proportion of economically active people has declined by almost 6% in the EU; however, a slight increase could be observed last year when it increased by 0.5 percentage points, resulting in 27.1% in 2020.
As the Hungarian news portal Pénzcentrum reports,
the statistics consider all people of working age who are neither employed nor unemployed to be outside the labour market.
This includes all the people who are not available in the world of work for various reasons, including studying, caring for a family member, a retired status, or being unable to work due to an illness or disability.
Based on last year’s data, Eurostat has made a ranking of the countries considering the proportion of economically inactive people, according to which Italy had the largest number of people outside the world of work. Numerically, this means 35.9% of the population. The Mediterranean country was followed by Croatia in the second and Greece in the third place where the proportion of economically inactive people is 32.9% and 32.6% respectively. The non-labour market share was also high in Belgium and Romania, exceeding 30%.
WAGES. Simple as that.
How is it possible so many Hungarians not working? In many cases they do not have any skills useful in the workplace. There is definitely a shortage of trained brick masons. I am certain wages are also a major problem as well. The Hungarian government needs to try and train more youth to enter the construction fields, auto repairs, heating and refrigeration for example. They also need to raise the minimum wage for skilled workers.
In other cases many of these not working people are working under the table and not being counted by the authorites. In other cases we have some lazy men that do not work and instead send their women out to work so they can sit home all day and drink.