Would you come to work in Hungary for EUR 938 as the average salary per month?

Differences have increased between the different regions of Hungary regarding the average wages. Even though many Hungarians became unemployed or suffered salary reductions because of the crisis following the epidemic, the Hungarian Central Statistical Office still says that the gross average wage increased in the country by ten per cent. Recently, they said that the average income per month reached HUF 400 thousand (EUR 1,300), but they did not change their method of calculation to make it fit the current situation. Therefore, the real sum is much lower. Details below.

According to 24, the average salary of Hungarians working for companies employing at least five people reached HUF 401,800 (EUR 1,104) in September. However, the news website states that the calculation of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) is wrong. Firstly,

the smallest companies are not included,

but they pay much lower wages than the bigger ones. Furthermore, they do not calculate the people having a part-time job, even though their number rose significantly because of the crisis.

Meanwhile, there is no data on the website of the HCSO about the employees of small companies. Based on estimates, however, the HCSO  does not include 25 pc of the employees. As a result, Attila Udvardi, the director of GKI, a Hungarian economic research institute, says that the Hungarian state should publish all data relevant to the issue to be able to make more accurate calculations.

Between January and July, the reduction in the case of those having a full-time job was 236 thousand. If we modify that to February and July, the number grows to 327 thousand. Meanwhile, the number of those having a part-time job rose from 327 thousand to 460 thousand, and

the HCSO does not calculate with the latter.

Interestingly, 24 examined how much full-time employees could take home. The sum was HUF 1,113 billion in March, but that decreased by 110 billion in May, even though their number went down by 263 thousand. Meanwhile, the number of those having a part-time job increased by 176 thousand, but they get only HUF 30 billion more. As a result, Hungarians took HUF 80 billion less home in May than in March, before the start of the epidemic and the economic crisis.

Mr Udvardi says that such a trend was seen in 2009 after the financial crisis, as well as in 2012. Furthermore,

the curve of the recovery will probably not resemble a V,

so GKI says that in January 2021, the average pay rise in Hungary will not exceed five pc, and they did not include small companies in that calculation. 

Therefore, 24 says that despite the more than HUF 400 thousand the HCSO communicated, the real average salary in Hungary is about HUF 363,729 (EUR 1,000). Furthermore, if we consider small businesses, that might be lower, about HUF 341,530 (EUR 938).

The HCSO claimed before soon to publish data of the businesses employing less than five people, but they have not met that promise yet.

Source: 24.hu

2 Comments

  1. In authoritarian regimes worldwide, even if they have the full data (about any matter), it is not published if it does not fit the government narrative. The Hungarian government fits that mould, I suspect.

  2. If the information, statistical and other, from sources that this article is gathered and compiled, and that it is Factorially correct, the question beckons, what is the over-all quality of life, the mere opportunities of a life, for the majority, the “core” of a country’s workforce, its citizens, who earn and are supposed or expected to live on a wage or salary that is “frightening” to the over-all cost and living cost levels, of human life in the 21st century.
    Factorially – the place of my birth, you reach 65 years of age, and you are asset tested, but the Government, for a fortnight, pays you, as a single person, depending on your assets, a base, that is the equivalent of EUR1060 per fortnight not monthly but fortnightly.
    The country of my birth, comparatively speaking, has a 44% per cent higher cost of living level, in comparison to Hungary.
    Factorially, you reach 65 years of age, in the place of my birth, and you are “not asset rich” the provision of Government, every 14 days, places vastness of numbers, in a country of 26 million people, living the “gloaming” years of their life, un-acceptable thousands, on a poverty line level of life-style.
    They called the place of my birth, decades back, the “Lucky Country”.
    That is not Factorially the situation and picture, what the country of my birth, has been for decades, and has unfortunately sadly seen it eradicated from it’s 1960’s global reputation.
    Globally, not since the 1930’s – The Great Depression years, that globally changed and reconstructed the ways of the world, have we ALL been challenged, by this novel coronavirus.
    The World has changed since February 2020.
    The continual developing on-going layers of change to be experienced, individually by countries, and the bigger global picture, the humanitarian challenges that confront ALL is a monumental task.
    Will these “novel” times we ALL live, create a greater deeper social gap in modern society ?
    Answer : YES.
    We wait patiently, for the discovery of a vaccine, that will immunize human beings from the spreading and contacting this deadly novel virus.

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