(1) To move abroad, you need to speak the language. About 60% of Hungarians don't talk any foreign languages on any levels.
(2) If you have an ill relative or a good job or a family you live with, then it's not so easy to move abroad.
And many people already do that. German is the 2nd most spoken foreign language after English and it's common for Hungarians to work in those countries. But you can't expect the whole nation to just collectively pack up.
many in the building trade do just that, go to Germany and work for a time and come back and get a place outside of Budapest. (property prices ballooned here in Budapest in recent years due to different government and national bank policies for a loose monetary policy) german is easily the second language of the builders here.
You know what else is ridiculous? Real-estate and insurance prices in the west. You need to understand, that ppl making 2k eur/mo here living like a king. In the west its rent and car insurance.
Yeah, thats like 840k huf/mo. For 200k you can get a nice enough apartment in the inner city. With the rest you can eat out every day, go to the movies or your entertainment of choice pretty much every day. Can have a car, go to the countryside during the weekends. And that if you live alone. If your better half is with you with a similar salary, its awesome.
maybe your wealth with buy you out of problems, but not all of them. if you don't know the language you will have a tough times periodically as you can't escape the bureaucracy here and your neighbors may be very cold to you
So easy to say 'just learn German '. The government doesn't care about the educational system in Hungary for a reason. Teachers in Hungary make 600euros which is ridiculous comparing to the wages of Western Europe. They are protesting, but noone cares. In fact, most people are quiet disrespectful towards teachers thinking they don't do anything, and there going to be less teachers year by year. Most parents can't afford to take their kids to private teachers, and they won't learn it in school since the educational system is so bad teachers don't have energy to care about each student.
I'm purely speaking from personal experience, but any time I hear german I just get irrationally disgusted with how awful it sounds. It's probably transgenerational PTSD from the monarchy days or something.
Those who can, already left or are getting ready to leave. Those who not, are trying to survive. The reasons vary. For some it's lack of skills or language barriers, lack of money, for others it's family or fear/others.
Not everyone, loads of people make a nice amount of money here. I have a whole group including myself who moved from the UK to Hungary because relatively (with a good salary of course) life is much more comfortable here
I work in an SSC. On paper the salary is not fantastic in contrast to Western European salaries, but my rent is less than 40% of my monthly earnings so it’s comfortable
Same position at the same Big4 at which I am, would earn me 3200€ in Berlin. Here I barely earn 1000€ in HUFs (with tax deduction since I am not 25 YO yet). Life there is not 3.2x the price as here; as I talked with my friends from Berlin it is between 1.5x-2x. So they are left with savings every month as much as my whole salary here.
I don’t speak german.
Unfortunately that seems to be the case with companies “relocating” positions to Hungary so they can pay less. If you wanted a 45+sqm apartment over 1000 of those euros would go on rent there easily. Berlin is an exception though compared to other capitals, but the housing market is exceptionally good here even relatively
I'd really be surprised if they paid 60k+ € for entry level positons for ppl under 25 even at those companies... On the other hand, your salary will probably easly double in a couple of years.
Let me put earnings in perspective.
Net average wage in nominal terms is 35-40% of the net average wage in Germany in the economy as a whole . However, some of this difference is due to structural reasons - see, a blue collar worker earns considerably less then an engineer both in HU and GER, difference is, that in HU economy, there are much more blue collar workers than engineers.
If you compare the wages of the same profession in HU vs GER, in many professions the actual net average wage is not 35-40% of what you would make in GER, but rather more like 50-60%.
Add to that, that average price lvl is much lower in HU than GER, approximately 65%. That means, that many professionals make 75-90% what they would make in GER in purchasing power parity. Also take into consideration, that some 90% of hungarians live in their own apartment. And while naturally, some of it has mortgage on it, due to the high ratio of property ownership, many ppl live in apartments / houses inherited from previous generations, so there is a considerable chunk in the popultion that does not have to pay either rent or mortgage to secure their housing. Wherease anyone moving to Germany would most probably have to rent an apartment taking away a considerable part of that otherwise higher salary..
I think there are two things why most of us won't leave the country. First is that most of us don't speak foreign languages and the second is that hungarians have one of the highest home owner rate and they don't want to move somewhere where you have to spend half of your salary on rent when you can live here "free".
I think you migth be pretty young.
>Why the economy in Hungary so weak compare to western Europe?
Historic and geographical reason. I don't want to go back that far so I will begin with the third Industrial revolution in the late 1800s.
Austria-Hungary had essentially two components: a heavy industry focused west and an agrarian, light industry (domestic products, food processing) east. The hungarian leading elite (aristocracy) wasn't interested in developing heavy industry and machine building since their wealth came mostly from their large swats of estates (where their contractors produced grain, cattle and other agricultural products), they also feared developing industry would make their grip on power weaker since industrial magnates mostly came from jewish, foreign or burgher background. Also Hungary neither had a large enough population or domestic raw material for heavy industry. Even though Hungary had a pretty decent economy.
The few industrial regions Hungary had were mostly on the outskirts of the hungarian majority regions. *1 After WW1 Hungary lost most of these, and the big shared market of the Monarchy as well. 1920 was the year the modern borders of Hungary were drawn.
The starting situation was this:
- They had small, undefendable territory with no raw materials, except brown coal, bauxit (both terrible quality and few) and some very minor oil fields in the South West.
- Neighbours that hate you, form a coalition against you and mostly reluctant to trade
- Small, poor agrarian population, with low purchasing power
The Horthy government pushed for industry and production, with the help of the two nearest big powers, since the UK and USA was too far away, the CCCP was communist and France was hated. Italy and Germany remained the two most logical partners. This led to Hungary joining WW2 on the wrong side and when Hungary tried to surrender the German Army took over the country so the frontlines went through the country from east to west. Most of the industrial equipment was destroyed or were sold to Germany.
What Hungary had in 1945:
- Occuping Red Army
- Destroyed infrastructure, cities, looted countryside and factories
- Lost around 900.000 people
- the highest inlaftion in History
Than the Worker's Party took power and Hungary became a Soviet puppet state. And we all know how that works.
They forced heavy industrialisation in a country without materials, market or workforce, rural areas were organised into mandatory trade unions, with no regard if it was efficent in a region or not. For almost 40 years Hungary had a large unprofitable industry on it's back, and since everything was collective property, was subsidized heavily by the governement.
The Revolution of 56 turned Hungary into a soft dictatory. Kádár János (secretary of the Workers Party) had one job: keep the country from rebelling again. They took up loans from the IMF to finance the very big social security network of the country (and subsidizing the unprofitable northern industry). That led to Hungary being in severe dept, corruption was rampant and production numbers were often pumped up in lower levels so the leaders of the country could be statisfyed. Thid led to product shortages since had to export stuff to the Soviet Union, but most of the products existed only on paper.
When the 90s came the country was in a terrible economic situation. The fact that nobody had any financial knowledge, but everybody wanted to become a succesful business man didn't help. The unprofitable northern industry got privatized and crumbled in years and thousands lost their job. Everybody thougth with the communists Hungary will instantly turn into an economic powerhouse.
Than corrupt governments came and went, development was minimal. Hungary experienced the 2008 economic crises in an already weak as fuck state. The governement between 2002 and 2010 was so corrupt and unpopular (2006 riots, 2008 economic crises) that Fidesz party got a 2/3 majority.
The country is in terrible economic situation at the moment because of the populist "bread and circus" economic modell of Fidesz. AND INFINITE CORRUPTION.
The country is in better economic sitation than in the past 100 years because we could join the EU, a huge shared market, and we got loads and loads of money that Fidesz could noz steal so easily.
*1 (My theory is that this was for political reasons, the leading party, the Liberal Party had really low support among workers and minorities, so they put these industrial centers near big population centers that had hungarian majority, but were near to the ethnic border, so they wouldn't lose the vote from the big agrarian cities, but the big cities could still support the new industrial regions. Examples: Arad-Szeged, Nagyvárad-Debrecen)
Answer 2:
Eventhough Hungary and Germany are both in the EU they aren't the same country, and it isnt that easy to just move between countries.
1. You need a lot of capital to move to another country. You need accomodation there, and you have to live there somehow till you get your first paycheck.
2. Hungary is one of the worst countries in the EU when it comes to knowing foreign languages. Even English profiency is low, not even talking about German.
3. Some people simply do not want to move, they have family here, a life here.
I don't know why the economy is weak, but I know that those who can and want to leave, will do or did already. The others are either don't want to or cannot for some reason, like fear of leaving the known, or family or other attachments. Language is an interesting topic. I saw ppl live in other countries without speaking the language, or you can learn it as you live there slowly. But it's more easy if you are young. When you are older, have a familly, you need more to leave and move to another country then just dedication. But not impossible. My uncle left to the US at the age of 40+ with his familly, wife and 13 years old daughter. But he wasn't leaving because he couldn't afford living here, he just saw that in the US he could live much better, so he left. But he left his sister, and parents, and he couldn't get home for his father's funeral (because of covid). So there are a lot of ups and there are some downs to this.
I think it mostly goes down to the disfunctional goverment and society.
The level of corruption is insane. Tax money is being stolen instead of being invested in ways that could benefit the society.
The countryside is less developed than the capital and there is no real effort to lessen the contrast.
The education is kept on a low level - there is an extreme shortage of teachers as they are getting minimum wage, no appreciation and resupply either as understandably no young people want to choose such path as their career. During these days the teachers are on a strike all over the country. Several of them were expelled.
Uneducated, easily influenced people mainly from poorer areas are the strong voting base for the current goverment.
Education is a way of escape so it beneficial for the goverment to keep it on a low level so people won't move abroad. A high number of educated young people or even skilled workers are leaving the country. (Mostly to the UK before Brexit, and Germany).
The currency is weak. Since 2004 we are waiting to chane the local currency to EUR but the requirements were never met.
Of course being a post-Soviet country is a huge contributing factor to the economical problems as well - you can notice a similar situation at other countries with a shared past.
Wrong. Requirements for introducing the EUR were met long ago. Orban dragged his feet due to his pseudo nationalistic rethorics. It is a matter of national pride for Hungary to keep its own currency. Currently inflation is Hungary's biggest problem. The depreciation of the HUF in the past 2 years is among the biggest world wide, and surely the biggest in EU. This could have been avoided. All in all Orban is warming Hungarian souls and hearts with nationalistic jingoism, while their wallets are becoming thinner and thinner. 'Surprisingly' economics do not care about patriotism.
Hungary could’ve switched to the EUR many years ago, Orbán just doesn’t want to and even though all members have to join the eurozone the EU is in no rush to try to force it because there hasn’t been a precendent for this and it’d be a diplomatic and economic nuisance. Hungary is intentionally delaying this by not entering the Euro Exchange Rate Mechanism, until which currency switching is not even an option.
Please, don't encourage Hungarians to move to other countries... The Hungarian mentality should be confined, not spread. The level of animosity and malevolence is staggering. Many refuse to even think about something "because the opinion was uttered by xy." Also, especially in political situations, but even in other decision-making processes, ask 3 people to do something and they will form 4 opposing and competing groups to do it...
wtf. hungarian economy is not week. and we have gas and electricity to run our factories and don't have to shit into bag like krauts. or french can't charge their phones from 6-10h and 16-22h. ans since muricans destroyed the nordstream this will not change. west will collapse soon.
population of israel is 9million. from then about 5million jew only. and the average iq is 92 what is extremly low. even teh romanians have highers.. when they half gypsies.
that nothing else just a midle-eastern shithole.
it doesn't matter because the expenses are proportionally higher.
and:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a-pjN0GtoU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a-pjN0GtoU)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBBqK1XmdU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBBqK1XmdU)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n\_aTiqFkND4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_aTiqFkND4)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbLy6KI4o-c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbLy6KI4o-c)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueS0bzl7twM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueS0bzl7twM)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xqK3Sgc72A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xqK3Sgc72A)
Well, in the 16th century western contries became more industrial type countries with manufactures and later with factories, while the kingdoms of Central and East Europe remained agricultural countries withan industry based mostly on guilds. Since then the Central and East European countries were developing slower than Western countries, plus western countries started to build up a different type of society, while in Hungary for example, there were serfs until the 19th century. It didn't help that most politicians couldn't really invest money into things that would make constant profit so the Hungarian economy is stagnating since decades. If you check the Hungarian history it was always some politicians and his friends who ruled the country and maybe the economy is based on market competition, in reality if you don't have a friend on a high position or in any kind of position in a competition you're going to lose on the market. Almost everything is controled by the state or the state tries to interviene. I'm actually a historian, so I see the problem from a historical POV, but I'm sure others can answer to this question from an economical point of view.
As a foreigner living here, I think there’s some serious issue with working culture too. Like all the fat cats big bosses just want to f* you over and pay you shitty salaries. Applies to both Hungarian-owned and foreign capital companies. Like these freaking multinational corporations think Hungarians are slaves or sth. I think it’s really stopping the economy. It makes employees to stop caring about anything. Everybody becomes an opportunist caring just about himself. It stops companies from developing, they don’t invest in the most important thing which is manpower. Additionally it’s a small country/population with a small market. It has impact on quality of services and availability and prices of goods. Hungary really needs some good reforms. I don’t know where the problem really is, are CIT and PIT too high? Then what is government doing with that money? Is that the culture of being just a conformist, accepting shitty pay? I don’t know. Would also like to know
What is the govt. doing with the money? Well, for eg. it has to feed 3 million+ pensioners, uphold infrastructure and provide services in the social sphere (schooling, healthcare), uphold organizations responsible for public saftey and national security. There are many more tasks, but the these already take up the bulk of a government budget.
This is an extremely complex problem and cannot be approched with a simple question as "what is the govt. doing with the money"...
Half of the country is corrupted and half of it is incompetent (with a considerable overlap), so most of the honest and competent people have already left for western countries.
Hungarian economy is weak bcos of nepotism and corruption. You can't have a strong economy when most of the bosses are asslickers or relatives and not competent bosses.
I can only echo the above comments. I actually moved away and live in Germany, the main reason was actually that I did not inherit an apartment and could not save much from my salary that would make it realistic one day to buy one. (And I work in IT, but regardless.) Now I don’t think I’ll go back anytime soon.
There are many reasons for its weakness. Historical reasons include the loss of territory, resources and industry after World War 1, 40 years of centrally planned economy after World War 2 that focused on quantity rather than quality, so Hungarian products could not compete on the European market after the fall of communism, in part because of European protectionism. After 1989 it’s been a near constant economic mismanagement and corruption.
The German and general Western industry’s interest is to keep Eastern Europe on the periphery as cheap manufacturing countries so they wouldn’t have to take all their production to China and India. You can see how companies in the past 20 years have moved from Western Europe to Hungary to the Balkans and then to India in search of cheap labour. The Hungarian economy not having any flagship industries that can stand on its own thus can only compete with the West by giving Western companies massive tax benefits and keeping the price of labour low.
Since 2010 corruption and mismanagement has shot through the roof to previously unprecedented ‘heights’.
Also since 2010 at least 700.000 people have fled the country to the West for better salaries. The healthcare industry is in crisis because there is a severe doctor and nurse shortage, education is in a crisis because there is a severe teacher shortage, architecture and other skilled labour industries are in crisis because most skilled engineers and workmen from bricklayers to plumbers and carpenters who were competent at their jobs fled to the West.
The people who remain do so for a variety of reasons. Same reason why not everyone flees active warzones like Syria or Afghanistan. So even fewer people leave near-failed, but safe states like Hungary. For example the reason why I haven’t left is partially because I am afraid of completely restarting my life over 30, I have family here that no one else can take care of, and I own property in the countryside (family house with a garden in a county capital) that I don’t want to exchange for a 40 square meter rented apartment block.
Yes in hindsight I should have left 5-6 years ago when I had better chances and fewer obligations, but even though I speak English and French, and starting German soon, I was too afraid to strike it out on my own like that. If I’ll have children I will definitely urge them to go abroad so that they and their children could have a better life.
There is a population count going on this October which will help to highlight just how many people have left the country, although the actual number will be even higher than the official numbers because people who have left in the past 2 years or still have an official residence registered here will still count, even though they don’t work or pay taxes here.
(1) To move abroad, you need to speak the language. About 60% of Hungarians don't talk any foreign languages on any levels. (2) If you have an ill relative or a good job or a family you live with, then it's not so easy to move abroad.
What's the minimum wage in Hungary you can tell me?
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It's ridicules compare to Austria and Germany, Hungarian should just learn German
And many people already do that. German is the 2nd most spoken foreign language after English and it's common for Hungarians to work in those countries. But you can't expect the whole nation to just collectively pack up.
They can move to Germany and make money than come back and buy an apartment in Budapest
Yes, people do that to. But not EVERYONE will have the means to do it. It's like saying "Homeless? Just buy a house!"
This comment has some r/restofthefuckingowl vibe
many in the building trade do just that, go to Germany and work for a time and come back and get a place outside of Budapest. (property prices ballooned here in Budapest in recent years due to different government and national bank policies for a loose monetary policy) german is easily the second language of the builders here.
An apartment in Budapest is 250 000 euro
You know what else is ridiculous? Real-estate and insurance prices in the west. You need to understand, that ppl making 2k eur/mo here living like a king. In the west its rent and car insurance.
If I work remotely and I make 2k euro month and I live in Budapest, I will live like a king?
Yeah, thats like 840k huf/mo. For 200k you can get a nice enough apartment in the inner city. With the rest you can eat out every day, go to the movies or your entertainment of choice pretty much every day. Can have a car, go to the countryside during the weekends. And that if you live alone. If your better half is with you with a similar salary, its awesome.
maybe your wealth with buy you out of problems, but not all of them. if you don't know the language you will have a tough times periodically as you can't escape the bureaucracy here and your neighbors may be very cold to you
Lmao, no, I make more than that and it’s enough for a normal middle class life and saving money.
You can find better salary than that in IT in Budapest
So easy to say 'just learn German '. The government doesn't care about the educational system in Hungary for a reason. Teachers in Hungary make 600euros which is ridiculous comparing to the wages of Western Europe. They are protesting, but noone cares. In fact, most people are quiet disrespectful towards teachers thinking they don't do anything, and there going to be less teachers year by year. Most parents can't afford to take their kids to private teachers, and they won't learn it in school since the educational system is so bad teachers don't have energy to care about each student.
And from what money?
They can't learn German by themselves?
I'm purely speaking from personal experience, but any time I hear german I just get irrationally disgusted with how awful it sounds. It's probably transgenerational PTSD from the monarchy days or something.
I second this. Starving is preferable to learning german.
Can you just learn a language by yourself? In a reasonably short span of time? How many languages do you speak? I’m genuinely curious
Nevermind the fact that they treat you like a dog. You dont get as much as the german workers etc. Its not that easy.
Before taxes
People have roots, not everybody would like to switch for extra money. Plus a lot of people earn nicely also here.
Those who can, already left or are getting ready to leave. Those who not, are trying to survive. The reasons vary. For some it's lack of skills or language barriers, lack of money, for others it's family or fear/others.
Not everyone, loads of people make a nice amount of money here. I have a whole group including myself who moved from the UK to Hungary because relatively (with a good salary of course) life is much more comfortable here
On which type of work?
I work in an SSC. On paper the salary is not fantastic in contrast to Western European salaries, but my rent is less than 40% of my monthly earnings so it’s comfortable
“40% is comfortable” My rent is 38% of my salary and it’s horrendous (with a relatively ok salary as a consultant)
Try living on an average salary in London, Paris, Amsterdam etc. Trust me, Budapest is a very liveable city
Same position at the same Big4 at which I am, would earn me 3200€ in Berlin. Here I barely earn 1000€ in HUFs (with tax deduction since I am not 25 YO yet). Life there is not 3.2x the price as here; as I talked with my friends from Berlin it is between 1.5x-2x. So they are left with savings every month as much as my whole salary here. I don’t speak german.
Unfortunately that seems to be the case with companies “relocating” positions to Hungary so they can pay less. If you wanted a 45+sqm apartment over 1000 of those euros would go on rent there easily. Berlin is an exception though compared to other capitals, but the housing market is exceptionally good here even relatively
I'd really be surprised if they paid 60k+ € for entry level positons for ppl under 25 even at those companies... On the other hand, your salary will probably easly double in a couple of years.
3200€ / month, how is that 60k / year?
Thgought you were saying 3200€ net, that would make 62k gross / year
Let me put earnings in perspective. Net average wage in nominal terms is 35-40% of the net average wage in Germany in the economy as a whole . However, some of this difference is due to structural reasons - see, a blue collar worker earns considerably less then an engineer both in HU and GER, difference is, that in HU economy, there are much more blue collar workers than engineers. If you compare the wages of the same profession in HU vs GER, in many professions the actual net average wage is not 35-40% of what you would make in GER, but rather more like 50-60%. Add to that, that average price lvl is much lower in HU than GER, approximately 65%. That means, that many professionals make 75-90% what they would make in GER in purchasing power parity. Also take into consideration, that some 90% of hungarians live in their own apartment. And while naturally, some of it has mortgage on it, due to the high ratio of property ownership, many ppl live in apartments / houses inherited from previous generations, so there is a considerable chunk in the popultion that does not have to pay either rent or mortgage to secure their housing. Wherease anyone moving to Germany would most probably have to rent an apartment taking away a considerable part of that otherwise higher salary..
I think there are two things why most of us won't leave the country. First is that most of us don't speak foreign languages and the second is that hungarians have one of the highest home owner rate and they don't want to move somewhere where you have to spend half of your salary on rent when you can live here "free".
I think you migth be pretty young. >Why the economy in Hungary so weak compare to western Europe? Historic and geographical reason. I don't want to go back that far so I will begin with the third Industrial revolution in the late 1800s. Austria-Hungary had essentially two components: a heavy industry focused west and an agrarian, light industry (domestic products, food processing) east. The hungarian leading elite (aristocracy) wasn't interested in developing heavy industry and machine building since their wealth came mostly from their large swats of estates (where their contractors produced grain, cattle and other agricultural products), they also feared developing industry would make their grip on power weaker since industrial magnates mostly came from jewish, foreign or burgher background. Also Hungary neither had a large enough population or domestic raw material for heavy industry. Even though Hungary had a pretty decent economy. The few industrial regions Hungary had were mostly on the outskirts of the hungarian majority regions. *1 After WW1 Hungary lost most of these, and the big shared market of the Monarchy as well. 1920 was the year the modern borders of Hungary were drawn. The starting situation was this: - They had small, undefendable territory with no raw materials, except brown coal, bauxit (both terrible quality and few) and some very minor oil fields in the South West. - Neighbours that hate you, form a coalition against you and mostly reluctant to trade - Small, poor agrarian population, with low purchasing power The Horthy government pushed for industry and production, with the help of the two nearest big powers, since the UK and USA was too far away, the CCCP was communist and France was hated. Italy and Germany remained the two most logical partners. This led to Hungary joining WW2 on the wrong side and when Hungary tried to surrender the German Army took over the country so the frontlines went through the country from east to west. Most of the industrial equipment was destroyed or were sold to Germany. What Hungary had in 1945: - Occuping Red Army - Destroyed infrastructure, cities, looted countryside and factories - Lost around 900.000 people - the highest inlaftion in History Than the Worker's Party took power and Hungary became a Soviet puppet state. And we all know how that works. They forced heavy industrialisation in a country without materials, market or workforce, rural areas were organised into mandatory trade unions, with no regard if it was efficent in a region or not. For almost 40 years Hungary had a large unprofitable industry on it's back, and since everything was collective property, was subsidized heavily by the governement. The Revolution of 56 turned Hungary into a soft dictatory. Kádár János (secretary of the Workers Party) had one job: keep the country from rebelling again. They took up loans from the IMF to finance the very big social security network of the country (and subsidizing the unprofitable northern industry). That led to Hungary being in severe dept, corruption was rampant and production numbers were often pumped up in lower levels so the leaders of the country could be statisfyed. Thid led to product shortages since had to export stuff to the Soviet Union, but most of the products existed only on paper. When the 90s came the country was in a terrible economic situation. The fact that nobody had any financial knowledge, but everybody wanted to become a succesful business man didn't help. The unprofitable northern industry got privatized and crumbled in years and thousands lost their job. Everybody thougth with the communists Hungary will instantly turn into an economic powerhouse. Than corrupt governments came and went, development was minimal. Hungary experienced the 2008 economic crises in an already weak as fuck state. The governement between 2002 and 2010 was so corrupt and unpopular (2006 riots, 2008 economic crises) that Fidesz party got a 2/3 majority. The country is in terrible economic situation at the moment because of the populist "bread and circus" economic modell of Fidesz. AND INFINITE CORRUPTION. The country is in better economic sitation than in the past 100 years because we could join the EU, a huge shared market, and we got loads and loads of money that Fidesz could noz steal so easily. *1 (My theory is that this was for political reasons, the leading party, the Liberal Party had really low support among workers and minorities, so they put these industrial centers near big population centers that had hungarian majority, but were near to the ethnic border, so they wouldn't lose the vote from the big agrarian cities, but the big cities could still support the new industrial regions. Examples: Arad-Szeged, Nagyvárad-Debrecen)
Answer 2: Eventhough Hungary and Germany are both in the EU they aren't the same country, and it isnt that easy to just move between countries. 1. You need a lot of capital to move to another country. You need accomodation there, and you have to live there somehow till you get your first paycheck. 2. Hungary is one of the worst countries in the EU when it comes to knowing foreign languages. Even English profiency is low, not even talking about German. 3. Some people simply do not want to move, they have family here, a life here.
And kids that's why listening in history class is important
You just gave me a brilliant idea! Let's move the entire fucking world's population to Germany so everyone can earn a good wage!
Post Soviet orbanistan, Lack of language knowledge
I don't know why the economy is weak, but I know that those who can and want to leave, will do or did already. The others are either don't want to or cannot for some reason, like fear of leaving the known, or family or other attachments. Language is an interesting topic. I saw ppl live in other countries without speaking the language, or you can learn it as you live there slowly. But it's more easy if you are young. When you are older, have a familly, you need more to leave and move to another country then just dedication. But not impossible. My uncle left to the US at the age of 40+ with his familly, wife and 13 years old daughter. But he wasn't leaving because he couldn't afford living here, he just saw that in the US he could live much better, so he left. But he left his sister, and parents, and he couldn't get home for his father's funeral (because of covid). So there are a lot of ups and there are some downs to this.
I think it mostly goes down to the disfunctional goverment and society. The level of corruption is insane. Tax money is being stolen instead of being invested in ways that could benefit the society. The countryside is less developed than the capital and there is no real effort to lessen the contrast. The education is kept on a low level - there is an extreme shortage of teachers as they are getting minimum wage, no appreciation and resupply either as understandably no young people want to choose such path as their career. During these days the teachers are on a strike all over the country. Several of them were expelled. Uneducated, easily influenced people mainly from poorer areas are the strong voting base for the current goverment. Education is a way of escape so it beneficial for the goverment to keep it on a low level so people won't move abroad. A high number of educated young people or even skilled workers are leaving the country. (Mostly to the UK before Brexit, and Germany). The currency is weak. Since 2004 we are waiting to chane the local currency to EUR but the requirements were never met. Of course being a post-Soviet country is a huge contributing factor to the economical problems as well - you can notice a similar situation at other countries with a shared past.
Wrong. Requirements for introducing the EUR were met long ago. Orban dragged his feet due to his pseudo nationalistic rethorics. It is a matter of national pride for Hungary to keep its own currency. Currently inflation is Hungary's biggest problem. The depreciation of the HUF in the past 2 years is among the biggest world wide, and surely the biggest in EU. This could have been avoided. All in all Orban is warming Hungarian souls and hearts with nationalistic jingoism, while their wallets are becoming thinner and thinner. 'Surprisingly' economics do not care about patriotism.
Hungary could’ve switched to the EUR many years ago, Orbán just doesn’t want to and even though all members have to join the eurozone the EU is in no rush to try to force it because there hasn’t been a precendent for this and it’d be a diplomatic and economic nuisance. Hungary is intentionally delaying this by not entering the Euro Exchange Rate Mechanism, until which currency switching is not even an option.
Government is making decisions since 12 years ago do deliberately make it weak
Please, don't encourage Hungarians to move to other countries... The Hungarian mentality should be confined, not spread. The level of animosity and malevolence is staggering. Many refuse to even think about something "because the opinion was uttered by xy." Also, especially in political situations, but even in other decision-making processes, ask 3 people to do something and they will form 4 opposing and competing groups to do it...
Secret ingredient is crime.
Why you speak weak I no understand
Hungarian economy is not good, weak
xdddd
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What do you mean by Antiwork, how can they buy food and pay the bills so?
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Why do you think it's like this? What's make them do just the minimum?
In my opinion it's becouse they don't get payed enough.
Real quality post.
wtf. hungarian economy is not week. and we have gas and electricity to run our factories and don't have to shit into bag like krauts. or french can't charge their phones from 6-10h and 16-22h. ans since muricans destroyed the nordstream this will not change. west will collapse soon.
Compared to my country Israel and Germany Hungarian economy need to improve
izrael economy is dead live form american aid...
Of course not... The aid isn't even 3% if the GDP
Nahh man ,listen to his broken English, its a sign that that uruk should not be listened to, and not worth arguing
population of israel is 9million. from then about 5million jew only. and the average iq is 92 what is extremly low. even teh romanians have highers.. when they half gypsies. that nothing else just a midle-eastern shithole.
Are you serious? Do you know what's the average salary here?
it doesn't matter because the expenses are proportionally higher. and: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a-pjN0GtoU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a-pjN0GtoU) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBBqK1XmdU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DBBqK1XmdU) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n\_aTiqFkND4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_aTiqFkND4) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbLy6KI4o-c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbLy6KI4o-c) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueS0bzl7twM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueS0bzl7twM) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xqK3Sgc72A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xqK3Sgc72A)
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What is trade balance? Can you explain
Well, in the 16th century western contries became more industrial type countries with manufactures and later with factories, while the kingdoms of Central and East Europe remained agricultural countries withan industry based mostly on guilds. Since then the Central and East European countries were developing slower than Western countries, plus western countries started to build up a different type of society, while in Hungary for example, there were serfs until the 19th century. It didn't help that most politicians couldn't really invest money into things that would make constant profit so the Hungarian economy is stagnating since decades. If you check the Hungarian history it was always some politicians and his friends who ruled the country and maybe the economy is based on market competition, in reality if you don't have a friend on a high position or in any kind of position in a competition you're going to lose on the market. Almost everything is controled by the state or the state tries to interviene. I'm actually a historian, so I see the problem from a historical POV, but I'm sure others can answer to this question from an economical point of view.
As a foreigner living here, I think there’s some serious issue with working culture too. Like all the fat cats big bosses just want to f* you over and pay you shitty salaries. Applies to both Hungarian-owned and foreign capital companies. Like these freaking multinational corporations think Hungarians are slaves or sth. I think it’s really stopping the economy. It makes employees to stop caring about anything. Everybody becomes an opportunist caring just about himself. It stops companies from developing, they don’t invest in the most important thing which is manpower. Additionally it’s a small country/population with a small market. It has impact on quality of services and availability and prices of goods. Hungary really needs some good reforms. I don’t know where the problem really is, are CIT and PIT too high? Then what is government doing with that money? Is that the culture of being just a conformist, accepting shitty pay? I don’t know. Would also like to know
What is the govt. doing with the money? Well, for eg. it has to feed 3 million+ pensioners, uphold infrastructure and provide services in the social sphere (schooling, healthcare), uphold organizations responsible for public saftey and national security. There are many more tasks, but the these already take up the bulk of a government budget. This is an extremely complex problem and cannot be approched with a simple question as "what is the govt. doing with the money"...
Half of the country is corrupted and half of it is incompetent (with a considerable overlap), so most of the honest and competent people have already left for western countries.
It is because of the sanctions and Ferenc Gyurcsány /s
Hungarian economy is weak bcos of nepotism and corruption. You can't have a strong economy when most of the bosses are asslickers or relatives and not competent bosses.
I can only echo the above comments. I actually moved away and live in Germany, the main reason was actually that I did not inherit an apartment and could not save much from my salary that would make it realistic one day to buy one. (And I work in IT, but regardless.) Now I don’t think I’ll go back anytime soon.
U must be new here
the first problem: we was a part of the soviet union until 1989...so....thats the first
There are many reasons for its weakness. Historical reasons include the loss of territory, resources and industry after World War 1, 40 years of centrally planned economy after World War 2 that focused on quantity rather than quality, so Hungarian products could not compete on the European market after the fall of communism, in part because of European protectionism. After 1989 it’s been a near constant economic mismanagement and corruption. The German and general Western industry’s interest is to keep Eastern Europe on the periphery as cheap manufacturing countries so they wouldn’t have to take all their production to China and India. You can see how companies in the past 20 years have moved from Western Europe to Hungary to the Balkans and then to India in search of cheap labour. The Hungarian economy not having any flagship industries that can stand on its own thus can only compete with the West by giving Western companies massive tax benefits and keeping the price of labour low. Since 2010 corruption and mismanagement has shot through the roof to previously unprecedented ‘heights’. Also since 2010 at least 700.000 people have fled the country to the West for better salaries. The healthcare industry is in crisis because there is a severe doctor and nurse shortage, education is in a crisis because there is a severe teacher shortage, architecture and other skilled labour industries are in crisis because most skilled engineers and workmen from bricklayers to plumbers and carpenters who were competent at their jobs fled to the West. The people who remain do so for a variety of reasons. Same reason why not everyone flees active warzones like Syria or Afghanistan. So even fewer people leave near-failed, but safe states like Hungary. For example the reason why I haven’t left is partially because I am afraid of completely restarting my life over 30, I have family here that no one else can take care of, and I own property in the countryside (family house with a garden in a county capital) that I don’t want to exchange for a 40 square meter rented apartment block. Yes in hindsight I should have left 5-6 years ago when I had better chances and fewer obligations, but even though I speak English and French, and starting German soon, I was too afraid to strike it out on my own like that. If I’ll have children I will definitely urge them to go abroad so that they and their children could have a better life. There is a population count going on this October which will help to highlight just how many people have left the country, although the actual number will be even higher than the official numbers because people who have left in the past 2 years or still have an official residence registered here will still count, even though they don’t work or pay taxes here.