Economy: Despite Orbán’s promise, public works are not a solution to unemployment either

For the first time since February, the number of unemployed has fallen, from 376,000 in June to 366,000 at the end of July, according to the National Employment Service, while 45,000 people still apply to employment offices in the seventh month. Even so, the indicator is at a record level, with 100,000 more unemployed than in February, and approximately 150,000 of the 366,000 unemployed do not receive any benefits. According to data released by the CSO on Friday, the number of unemployed receiving some type of benefit was 218,000 in July.

In April, Viktor Orbán promised that the government would create as many jobs as would be lost due to the epidemic. For now, however, it appears that there is no miracle weapon in the hands of the government for job creation either.

With two wage subsidy programs that began in late April, the government has supported more than 200,000 jobs. But these only helped the ones who were still working at the end of April, beginning of May, who had been dispatched by then, not those. After the part-time support, money was also given for job creation in May, employing 34,000 people, according to government communications. This program was rewritten in July to include employment support for the long-term unemployed or new entrants. In other words, it does not help those who have lost their jobs due to the epidemic, since “permanent” means that this program can include job seekers who have been in the program for at least six months, and companies that have fallen due to the coronary virus they send their workers as of mid-March.

As an alternative, Viktor Orbán agitated the army and job opportunities in state companies to the unemployed, and the government signed a strategic agreement with a temp agency. On the Prohuman 2004 page, when we clicked on the “Find a job” tab, we found just over 100 offers, with almost four thousand open “jobs” discussed in the Armed Forces in mid-June, but only about 600 were reported. applicants. And the SOEs program has gone nowhere in recent months.

The third solution is public works, but here the situation is not rosy either. The annual public employment budget of HUF 180 billion, which has been gradually decreasing in recent years, in 2019, was reduced by HUF 40 billion this year, even before the coronavirus, and since the start of the season of public works is in March, many public employees learned just before the epidemic that this year there will be no work: 15,000 fewer have started the season since March. With this, even those who separated from public work could increase the number of those who have been left without work since April.

There are places where labor shortages are a major concern

The restricted framework of public workers has not been removed from all in equal proportions. In Borsod, there are still several possibilities, but in Csongrád, for example, the budget has been cut in half, even adding another five billion guilders as of August 1. At the moment, however, there is a consultation between the offices of the labor district and the municipalities about how many people would apply again for public works, and for the moment it seems that there will not be many more than at present.

Hvg.hu contacted several mayors to see how many handles to escape to public works, which means a net income of 54 thousand guilders, and we got a very different picture. In Öttömös, Csongrád, with a population of eight hundred people, three people applied to the mayor for public employment, but in the meantime, two people found a job and one simply quit. In Mórahalom, on the other hand, local businesses were said to struggle with labor shortages rather than unemployment.

In Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county, Lóránt Budai, the mayor of Jászberény, did not experience being manipulated by public works, nor did the mayor of Magyarbánhegyes in Békés. According to Gyöngyi Sódarné Varga, applicants are not in crowded queues for 54,000 HUF, as it has been difficult to complete the frame in recent months and years. There are settlements, on the other hand, where there would be applicants, but the municipal coffers are very scarce, and since it does not belong to a disadvantaged area, the public work should expand considerably by itself. According to Jenő Schmidt, president of the National Association of Local Governments, the latter may be less, there is simply no need to work with a salary of 54,000 HUF. The president said that the needs of the local government had already been assessed in June, on the basis of which the government had decided on an additional budget of HUF 5 billion.

However, unemployment data increased dramatically: in the Mezőkovácsháza district, to which Magyarbánhegyes also belongs, from February to March, when the public work framework decreased drastically, from 2009 to 2106 the number of unemployed increased, and in June registered 2,443 unemployed. The number of unemployed in the district of Jászberény has also increased by five hundred since February, although here with the cut in public employment in March there was only one more unemployed, so the epidemic pushed the statistics. In Mórahalom district, the number of unemployed increased by 40 and then another 250 in June after the cessation of public works.

In the Makó district, 120 people registered as jobseekers at the beginning of March, and since then another four hundred. In July, these figures improved, and the number of unemployed fell between 3% and 10%.

It doesn’t matter who supports the family

There are several reasons why there are no masses of public workers: on the one hand, the net income of 54 thousand guilders is not very attractive, and on the other hand, many people still receive the income for job search. And those with no income can be absorbed in many places by seasonal farm work, at least in the peak season.

Of course, there would be those who would go to public works: three women from Makón also went to the local newspaper, they were still public workers in February, but as the urban setting was reduced by forty, they were left without public employment and have not been able to find employment since then . One of them was also approached by hvg.hu, the woman told him that she had four children, two of them were raised by her father and two by her. The school year for her youngest son begins in September, but she says her stomach already quivers when she thinks of school.

A Southern hungarythe mayor said they had to reduce their workforce by 40 in March, and that if they had the chance to expand, they would also look for women to come to the newspaper. Hvg.hu also contacted the local Makó government about how the decree on the expansion of the public employment framework in the Hungarian Gazette at the end of July could be used in Makó, but we did not receive a response to our questions.

Nonsense answers

As local governments often inquire about the number of public employees in employment offices, we also asked the Csongrád County Government Office how many people in the county indicated additional public work needs. In response, we received a link to the government’s public employment portal, which, broken down by settlement, describes the average number of people working in public works in January-June: only 84,000 remained in national public employment in March. in June to 90 thousand.

The Ministry of the Interior has informed us that the counties will receive the extra money based on the needs of the municipalities to the competent district offices. The press department also wrote that according to experience so far there is not much demand, the current figure (at the beginning of August) is close to 93 thousand, so there are almost 11 thousand more public workers compared to the start of the epidemic, and the question remains as to what will be enough. the 5 billion HUF of extra money. If we calculate one million florins per person per year, this could mean another 8-10 thousand “jobs” of public workers.

It goes less in the west

They became much more unemployed in the industrial centers of the more developed western counties than in the Great Plain: the number of unemployed doubled in the districts of Győr and Székesfehérvár, on the first of February 1796 to 4239, and in the second of 2334 to 4422.. Public work in these areas has so far been negligible: in Győr district, where 35 settlements belong, there were a total of 144 public workers in the first half of the year, 18 in Győr, 195 in 25 settlements in Székesfehérvár and 4 in Fehérvár. It is true that in western counties, the July figures show a clear improvement, with 6% and 13% more people working here compared to June.

It is to be expected everywhere that the three months of job search for those who have been laid off by the coronavirus and sometimes the months of registration will expire soon, so that by the fall, if tens of thousands remain without work but also without income, the demand for public works may increase.