The number of people in employment has been above 4 million for more than two years, and there have not been as many people in employment in Hungary for 26 years as there are today, Péter Cseresnyés said.
The State Secretary responsible for the labour market and training said at his press conference held in Budapest: the Hungarian reforms are working as the rate of unemployment has decreased to less than half, to 5.5 per cent since the change of governments in 2010, which is the lowest for 13 years. At the same time, the number of people aged between 15-74 years in employment increased by 149,000 compared with the year before, to 4,314,000 during the period between March-May 2016.
The employment rate of people aged between 15-64 years has improved by 2.8 percentage points in one year, and has risen to 66 per cent. When we look at the development of the number of people in employment broken down into genders, one may observe that the indicators have clearly improved in the case of both men and women. Compared with the previous year’s corresponding period, the employment rate of men aged between 15-64 has increased by 3.3 per cent to 72.5 per cent, while women’s employment reached a new peak during this period. The employment rate of women aged 15-64 years was 59.6 per cent which corresponds to a 2.2 per cent increase compared with the corresponding period of the year before and a 9.6 per cent improvement compared with the corresponding period of 2010. The improvement experienced in the field of the employment of women continues to remain one of the best in Europe. The number of the unemployed has almost halved in six years.
The State Secretary highlighted that results have also been achieved among young people as there are 289,000 people in the age group between 15-24 years in employment, almost 20,000 more than a year ago. At the same time, the number of young unemployed has decreased by 12,000 to 46,000, and a result, the youth unemployment rate has fallen below 14 per cent.
Mr Cseresnyés stressed: the Government’s active employment programmes play a prominent role in the continuously improving labour market statistics. Thanks to the Hungarian reforms, we may expect a continued rise in employment which will have an equally positive effect on the revenues of the budget and the consumption of households.
(Ministry for National Economy)
