More Foreign Guest Workers Allowed to Enter Hungary
- 2 Sep 2021 3:27 PM
- Hungary Around the Clock
A government decree allowing more guest workers to arrive from non-neighbouring countries came into force from 1 September.
Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Péter Szijjártó is responsible for the employment of third-country nationals in Hungary until the end of the state of emergency declared due to the pandemic.
Simple assembly work in the electronics and automotive industries, is mostly done by native Ukrainians and Serbians, as well as by workers from the Far East and Latin America, whose mass presence creates serious tensions around some industrial parks, the newspaper writes.
It is hard to estimate the actual number of guest workers, Népszava observes, but Eurostat data shows that Hungary issued 55,739 residence permits, 31,533 of them for employment purposes, in 2018.
However, in recent years, Serbian and Ukrainian citizens have not had to apply for a work permit in the areas most affected by labour shortages if they came to work in Hungary for less than 90 days.
The turnover among guest workers is very high, as a significant number of Ukrainian and Serbian workers move on for higher wages in Western European countries or Poland and Slovakia after a few months, said Vasas union vice-president Zoltán László.
Subsidiaries of the same electronics company pay for the same work €3.40 per hour in Hungary but €4.70 per hour in Poland.
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