Emigration is unbroken, and the number of Hungarians working in Austria has almost reached a peak

According to the statistics, the number of employed people in Austria did not fluctuate as much at the beginning of the year as in other years, which can be seen somewhat in the data of Hungarian employees. Even now, there was an increase compared to the seasonally weaker months of autumn, as is the case every year, but no new peak was reached, such as in February 2023. Maybe the winter “ski season” didn’t go too well for our neighbors?

In Austria, 124,820 Hungarian citizens were employed in January, 126,169 in February, and 124,158 in March. These figures are much higher than the 119,000 in November, but this time the record was not set. In July, the record was about five hundred people higher, at 126,656. (The number of Hungarians usually sets new and new records during the summer and winter tourist seasons, although more often in summer than in winter.)

We can’t catch up with the Germans

Thus, the number of Hungarian employees is still slightly behind that of the Germans, although there have already been examples of us temporarily catching up with them. In February, however, the number of German “guest workers” almost reached 128,000, nearly two thousand higher. But as you can see in the figure above, based on the trend lines, it is very likely that sooner or later our compatriots will “take the lead”, there will be more of them on the Austrian labor market than everyone else.

Although the number of workers from former Yugoslav successor states is also growing rapidly, individually they are still a long way from catching up with the Hungarians. (If the statistics counted them together, they would win by a lot.)

They came from war zones

The number of employees with Russian citizenship is only growing slowly, even though many of them immigrated to, for example, Germany in the past. The Ukrainians are even faster (red line in the figure above), but still there are only about 18,000.

Based on the figure above, the number of Iraqi and Afghan workers has been steadily increasing since the 2015 refugee crisis, but is still low. The participation of Iranian or Iraqi workers in the labor market is even less important.

Has the one who wanted gone already?

There is a lot of talk about the fact that the reserves of the Hungarian labor market have been exhausted, those who wanted or were able to, already started working, and those who wanted or were able to, for the most part, already went to work abroad. Perhaps this also contributes to the fact that – if only to a small extent – the increase in the number of Hungarian employees at the “in-laws” seems to be slowing down. But he didn’t stop anyway.

Our compatriots traditionally work in large numbers in tourism and related sectors, as well as in places where you can commute from Hungary. The situation is similar with the Germans, Slovaks, Slovenes and, to a small extent, perhaps also with the Czechs.

By the way, the numbers only show full-time employees. Those in part-time and self-employed status would increase these numbers somewhat, but not to a large extent.

Austria is the Hungarians main destination country

Austria is still the most popular among Hungarians who decide to leave their native country, writes the Hungarian-language page of the Austrian public service ORF, referring to the KSH.

In the 14 years since 2010, a total of 324,179 Hungarians have emigrated from the country.

33,700 people emigrated from Hungary in 2023, and almost half of them, 15,600, started a new life in Austria. (The data are rounded and preliminary.) 8,150 Hungarians moved to Germany in 2023, while only 900 moved to the United Kingdom. The destination countries chosen by the remaining 9,050 emigrant Hungarians are not specified.

(And many Hungarians do not announce that they are emigrating, so the CSO does not or only belatedly finds out about them – the ed.)

There are few returnees

Fewer and fewer people are going to the United Kingdom to start a new life, since Brexit it has not attracted Hungarians, they add. Although some of the emigrants move back to Hungary from time to time, their number exceeded that of those who decided to emigrate in only three years in the last 14 years. These years are 2019, 2020 and 2021.

The fact that there were closures due to Covid, which caused many people to lose their jobs, probably played a big part in this. Also, Brexit, i.e. the secession of Great Britain from the EU, as a result of which many people also decided to return to Hungary.

(About this wrote about statistics in more detail also Mfor.hu.)

Logically, there are significant differences between the KSH numbers and the Austrian employment statistics, since one indicates persons living abroad and the other persons working abroad. Commuters do not live abroad, but some of those who live abroad do not work or are not employed (studying, running a household, running a business, retired, etc.).