Annual Foreign Labor Quota to Be Lowered in 2025

MTI-Hungary Today 2024.12.27.

Hungarian workforce comes first, therefore the Minister for National Economy is reducing the maximum quota for guest workers to just 35,000, announced the Ministry for National Economy.

“In order to protect Hungarian families, workers and the labor market,” Minister for National Economy Márton Nagy decided to cap the maximum number of guest worker residence permits and residence permits for employment purposes at 35,000 in 2025.

“Hungary will be a country of Hungarians, neither a country of guest workers nor a country of migrants, and it will only be possible to reside and work temporarily for the purposes and under the title defined by the Hungarian state, subject to the fulfillment of the conditions defined by the state and the state’s decision to that effect. The government protects Hungarian families and Hungarian jobs, therefore the legislation stipulates that foreign workers can only be employed if Hungarian workers can no longer fill the vacancies,” the statement said.

The number of workers from third countries who can be employed in Hungary at the same time has been regulated for two decades by a quota, the theoretical maximum of which is the average number of vacancies for the previous four quarters.

According to data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), the maximum value of the quota could be near 71,000 in 2025. However, Minister Márton Nagy decided to tighten the regulation on guest workers.

In accordance with the new regulation, the total number of residence permits for employment purposes and guest worker residence permits cannot exceed 35,000 in 2025.

This means that the number of permits that can be issued will not even reach half of the theoretical maximum,

the ministry stressed.

Fact

As previously reported by Hungary Today, the government announced this autumn that it would further tighten the regulation on the employment of guest workers. The proposed tightening provides that if an employer has been fined for labor or health and safety offenses in the previous year, their application for a work permit could be automatically rejected. In addition, the permit may be rejected if the employer refuses to hire Hungarian workers without justification or acts in bad faith during the mediation process. To prevent potential abuse, the government would also prohibit private recruitment agencies from recruiting third-country nationals from outside the EU.

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Via MTI, Featured image: Pexels