Hungary has seen a number of recent developments and investments that continue to place a high demand on its labor force.Continue reading
A survey by Pulzus investigated attitudes towards foreign workers, and as it turned out, the majority of respondents think that Hungarian workers should be employed for domestic jobs, while 17 percent are completely accepting towards filling Hungarian vacancies with foreigners, Napi.hu reports.
More than half of the Hungarians polled are against hiring foreign workers: 53 percent of men are against it, while the figure is 69 percent for women. At the same time, the proportion of men who supported the employment of foreign workers in Hungary was higher (23 percent) than that of women (13 percent).
Interestingly, 17 percent of men and 9 percent of women said they had no objection to guest workers coming from European countries.
Among the age groups surveyed, 16-18 percent of respondents from every group were typically in favor of foreigners coming to work in Hungary. However, a fifth of 18-39 year olds said they would like foreign workers to come, but not from Asia.
Education is a key determinant of attitudes towards guest workers. Those with higher education are much more receptive, with 30 percent of them in favor of filling domestic job vacancies with foreigners. Meanwhile, however, almost half of them (47 percent) insisted that only Hungarian workers should be hired for domestic jobs.
The survey clearly shows the attitude of the Hungarian population towards guest workers, but at the same time it is almost inevitable that they will come to Hungary, for example in certain shortage sectors.
It is known that there is a shortage of truck drivers, which makes the work of transport companies more difficult.
For this reason, some companies in Hungary have considered bringing drivers from India to Hungary. At the beginning of March, news broke that the Hungarian subsidiary of the Danish-owned Baton Transport was recruiting female truck drivers in India for domestic positions. In the first phase of the project, the transport company has started recruiting 25 Indian women, which will later be increased to 800.
The presence of Indian drivers is not unprecedented in Hungary, as transport and logistics company Waberer’s announced last year that their first Indian driver had successfully completed their training program and started working for them. The company was training 79 Indian workers for international freight transport in the first round.
The situation is also similar in the IT sector, where there is also a shortage of professionals. Some companies are open to hiring workers from third countries, for example from India, but it is important to know that this involves many administrative difficulties.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian government also supports foreign workers coming to Hungary in some cases.
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in May that the demand for well-qualified labor is constantly growing, and while the aim is to fill the vacancies mainly with Hungarians, it must be seen that there are positions for which it is very difficult to find local workforce.
He added that there is now a framework for this, which provides certainty for all and allows qualified employment agencies to bring in workers from 15 countries, including Serbia, quickly and easily, without any special authorization procedure.
Featured photo via Pixabay
