This paper analyses the relationship between labour shortage and economic inequalities within Hungary (before the Covid-19 Crisis) from the perspective of labour unions. The main focus of this research is to understand how Hungarian labour market developments led to the emigration of labour force and the labour shortage that developed considering the specific historical, geographical and political characteristics of Hungary within the Central and Eastern European region. This paper extends the existing research about emigration and labour shortage as it includes labour union representatives’ experience based on 17 semi-structured problem-centred interviews. This study concludes that meagre wages hinder the social recognition of traditional professions and skilled labour force. As a result, the labour force develops its strategy of changing professions to less demanding activities either moving abroad or to wealthier regions of Hungary due to the increasing workload that infiltrates private life. This results in growing job fluctuation and the lack of professional labour force. The study furthermore identifies how regional inequalities influence people’s migration opportunities and finds that people from Hungary’s poorer Eastern regions firstly relocate to border areas which then they use as a springboard to find better opportunities in Western Europe.

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IfS Working Papers

Institut für Soziologie