Growing GDP amid increasing shortage of manpower

A pro-government analyst is confident that growth rates of 3 to 5 per cent are attainable in the foreseeable future, while a left-wing commentator thinks that the shortage of manpower will cause serious problems.

In Magyar Idők, Gergely Kiss describes the second quarter growth of 2.6 per cent as a welcome surprise in a period when the flow of EU cohesion and structural funds is slow. This, he claims, debunks the opposition argument that EU contributions are the main driving force in the Hungarian economy. He also welcomes the government’s plans to stimulate employment by reducing social insurance contributions, without however endangering the balance of public health and pension funds.

Népszabadság’s Győr correspondent Ferenc Hajba writes, on the other hand, that unemployment is not the main problem – not in western Hungary at least. On the contrary, businesses are struggling with an increasing shortage of manpower. People tend to shun low prestige jobs in Hungary. Meanwhile Hungarian university graduates work in London coffee-shops or as shop assistants in Austria where the are ‘paid decently’. Hajba thinks the flight of manpower is the fault of the government and dismisses official endeavours to stimulate higher birth-rates as pathetically insufficient to replace the missing workforce.

Tags: employment, growth