Hungary Has the Lowest Rate of Guest Workers among V4 Countries

Foreigners can only temporarily reside and work in Hungary for purposes under the title and conditions set by the Hungarian state, and if the state so decides, Sándor Czomba, State Secretary for Employment Policy, stressed in a statement. The new immigration law regulates the residence of foreigners in Hungary as strictly as possible, he added.

The number of foreigners residing in Hungary has increased by 53,000 since 2010, based on data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), meaning an average increase of only 4,000 people per year. There is no question of a mass influx of foreigners into Hungary in the last decade, Sándor Czomba underlined.

The figures show that of the 514,000 foreigners who arrived in Hungary between 2010 and 2023, less than half, 251,000, are currently residing in the country, which is 2.6% of the total population. Of these, 36,000 are temporarily staying in the country to study. Citing official data, Czomba noted that 324,000 Hungarian citizens have left Hungary since 2010, of whom 219,000 have returned to Hungary. “At the same time, the Hungarian emigration balance shows a surplus of around 40,000 people over the last 13 years. This is due to the fact that 143,000 Hungarian citizens born abroad have returned home to Hungary,” the State Secretary said.

Currently, there are around 120,000 guest workers in the country. This means that the share of workers from third countries is still the lowest in the V4 countries.

Therefore, guest workers do not and cannot take jobs from Hungarians, the politician underlined. He said that the government’s primary goal is to activate the 300,000-strong Hungarian labor reserve, mainly job seekers and inactive workers, in order to alleviate the labor shortage in Hungary. “Only when the Hungarian and EU workforce is depleted will workers from third countries be allowed to come,” he noted.

The share of foreign workers in Hungary is 2.6 percent of the total number of employed persons, compared to 3.8 percent in Slovakia, 6.4 percent in Poland, and 17 percent in the Czech Republic.

In Hungary, guest workers can only be employed in shortage occupations where domestic and EU labor is no longer available. Hungarian jobs are protected by quotas, country lists, and negative occupational lists. The replacement of long-term workers by guest workers is prohibited by law in Hungary. Czomba also pointed out that Hungarian wages are not being cut by guest workers. Wage dumping is prevented by law, as the remuneration for the employment of third-country nationals cannot differ significantly from the national average basic personal wage, so it cannot cause a competitive disadvantage for Hungarian workers on the labor market.

Via MTI, Featured image: Pexels