It is in Hungary again where female employment has increased the most rapidly.

Following Eurostat's publication of 25 member states’ employment data for Q3 2014, former Ministerial Commissioner Piroska Szalai, responsible for the improvement of the women’s labour market prospects said that Hungary is the only member state where over 3 percent increase was recorded in the previous three quarters thus the annual increase is expected to be the highest here as well.

The employment rate among the female population aged 15-64 was 56.5 percent in Q3, which shows a 3.4 percent increase compared to the data recorded in the same period last year. It is already the third quarter that the country’s indicators have increased four times as fast as the EU average, Hungary being among the top within the member states as a result.

Within the Visegrád Group, Hungary comes second after the Czech Republic regarding female employment rate indicators.

We have also managed to keep our first ranking position – achieved in the previous quarters – in decreasing unemployment rate. The improvement of female unemployment has been three times faster in the previous three quarters than that of the EU average. Our 7.8 percent unemployment rate is lower than the EU average ranking us on the 13th place within the EU.

Piroska Szalai pointed out that when compared to the same period of 2010, employment rate has increased by 5.5 percent among the female population aged 15-64. Hungary has been able to achieve the greatest improvement in Europe in this field (after Malta, Estonia and Lithuania), which is a clear indicator of the fact that the Government’s previous measures aimed at the improvement of female employment have been successful.

Within the framework of the Job Protection Action Plan, for instance, employers are provided contribution allowances in case they hire women receiving maternity benefits or childcare allowance, or the childcare allowance extra, which makes it possible for parents of small children to work and get allowances at the same time.

The improvement of female employment has been vital in stopping the increase of poverty rate – measured by EU methodology – which had been rising since 2007, and contributed to its significant decrease in 2013.

(Ministry for National Economy)