Hungary gross wage HUF 411,000 in January

Private-sector wages grew by an annual 8.5 percent before tax in January, while in the public sector, excluding fostered workers, salaries increased by 13 percent.

Net wages rose to 280,500 forints without benefits in kind, up 9.2 percent compared with the same period of the previous year.

Gross wages without bonuses came to 390,200 forints, up 9.8 percent year on year.

Calculating with consumer price inflation of 2.7 percent, wages rose by an annual 6.6 percent, KSH said.

Commenting on the data, Sandor Bodo, state secretary for employment policy at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM), said that compared with last year and ten years ago, wage growth in Hungary was major. Bodo told public television channel M1 that the basic minimum wage increased to 167,400 forints in January this year, compared with 73,500 ten years ago. The minimum wage for skilled workers increased to 219,000 compared with 89,500 in 2010, he added.

Real wages, he further noted, rose by 6.6 percent in January this year.

He said that hopefully as many people as possible would benefit from sectoral wage subsidies, research and development subsidies, and tax benefits for young adult earners, adding that wage growth was expected to continue after the relaunch of the economy.