Unemployment rate in western Hungary among best in EU

The unemployment of 15-29-year-olds has fallen by 12.8 percentage points in Hungary since 2010, ten times the EU average of 1.3 percentage points, the ministry said. The decline is second only to Lithuania’s, the statement said.

Youth unemployment was below 5 percent in 2021 in Hungary’s central and two western regions, down from around 30 percent nationwide in 2010, the ministry said. Unemployment in the total population in the western Hungarian regions was at 2.1-2.2 percent, it said.

Zsolt Kutnyanszky, the state secretary for industry and labour market, said Hungary’s employment rate was at a record high in the summer of 2022. “This was the first time when the number of jobholders in Hungary was over 4.7 million in three consecutive months,” he said.

The subsidy scheme for regional workforce support for companies has supported the employment of 8,700 people, with over 3,000 of them under 25, he said. “That age group will find working even more worthwhile, as they will be exempt from paying a personal income tax from the beginning of next year,” he added.