BUDAPEST: The Central Statistical Office (KSH) latest data shows that the period between December 2014 and February 2015, over 4.1 million people worked in Hungary, 111 thousand more than a year ago. The number of employed people increased by 2.8% and reached 4,124,000. KSH’s report shows that the number of people with a job has been above the 4 million mark for more than one year and unemployment also fell in the observed period.
The employment rate of those aged 15-64 years gained 2.3 percentage points and improved to 62.5 percent. The positive upward trend, in place for more than two years, has been mainly driven by private sector job growth. In the observed period, the number of people in employment aged 15-24 years was 274 thousand, while the respective employment rate showed an increase of 2.4 percentage points (to 24.7 percent). In the aforementioned period, the number of jobless people in Hungary fell by 24 thousand, year-on-year. This means that the number of unemployed people dropped to 346 thousand and the unemployment rate edged down by 0.7 percentage points, to 7.7 percent.
According to the Economy Ministry one of the determining factors behind the increase in employment has been the government’s active employment programme package, which helped the private sector become the main driving force of job growth.
