Hungary’s year-on-year employment data recorded the largest gain, 3.1 percent, among the EU member states in Q2 2014, the Ministry for National Economy announced in a press release, commenting on the latest Eurostat statistics.

The Ministry quoted former Ministerial Commissioner Piroska Szalai, responsible for the improvement of the women’s labour market prospects, who stressed that this figure is four-and-a-half times larger than the EU average. She added that Hungary was on the top of the EU’s ranking with regard to the improvement of employment and unemployment data in the first and second quarters of this year.

According to Eurostat data published last week, in comparison to the corresponding period of the previous year, in Q2 2014 the number of people in employment was up in 18 EU countries and down in only five of the them. Employment growth averaged 0.7 percent in the EU28, while it was on average 0.4 percent in the eurozone. In the observed period, the number of those in employment increased to the largest extent in Hungary, by 3.1 percent, followed by 2.7 percent in Great Britain and 2.6 percent in Malta.

Piroska Szalai stressed that Hungary leads not only the employment growth ranking but that of unemployment decrease as well. She added that although the latest data on women’s employment situation have not been published yet, she is expecting that Hungarian women will also top the respective EU rankings, due to employer contribution cuts and the childcare fee extra programme.

(Ministry for National Economy)