It is a very important requirement for skills training in the public education system that students obtain the skills and trades necessary for long-term access to the labor market. One important condition is that the schism between trades obtained at vocational school and the needs of the labor market be narrowed. In order to facilitate this goal, the Hungarian government developed a system in which the Regional Development and Training Committees (RDTCs) between 2008 and 2012 proposed a vocational training school structure on a regional basis. The IEER latest analysis examines how training schools responded to the proposals of the RDTCs education structure, and how proposals have been taken into account when making enrollment decisions. A key finding of this analysis is that RDTCs decisions have only minor influence on the future development of student numbers.

The estimate of IEER expects the number of registered job seekers to decrease by about 27 thousand people in May 2014.

Online media monitoring can be used to predict investment activity. A new study by the IEER assessed the feasibility of this. The analysis - based on more than 12 thousand articles containing words related to investing - identified those types of articles that will help most in order to forecast investments, and within this the development of private sector investments. In addition to abstract articles on legal topics, articles from origo.hu and vg.hu in this respect deserve special attention.

IEER estimate expects the number of registered job seekers to increase by about 4 thousand people in April 2014. Taking only the seasonal process into account would suggest a decrease of about 10-30 thousand. However there was no seasonal increase observable in the beginning of the winter season as usual (from November to January). This makes understandable the lack of seasonal decrease now.

"Beyond the second wave of the crisis: improving expectations - decreasing uncertainty" is the title that summarizes the results of the IEER April 2014 Business Climate Survey. The results of the study indicate a strengthening of the positive changes, the business climate indicator increased and reached the level of April 2011. The increase of the index value was derived from the improved expectations of stock orders and business situation of enterprises. These positive changes are accompanied by a low and declining level of investment activity. According to the results, after a long period of stagnation labour demand in the following half year is expected to rise in the Hungarian private sector.

Today's economic and social life tends to be fundamentally affected by the development and products of software industry. In the era of "information society", the changes and movements of this field have significant impacts on many segments of the society. In our study, one of our main purposes is to reveal the most important tendencies of the software industry recently. We also intend to detect the changes orienting the most probable future developments of this market. In order to complete our purposes, we concentrate our work not only on global and local trends, but we also introduce the histories and current characteristics of some typical software companies of our time.

On the following link an English summary of the paper can be downloaded.

The newest estimation of IEER expects the number of registered job seekers to increase by about 4 thousand people in March 2014. Taking only the seasonal process into account would suggest a decrease of about 40-45 thousand people, however, there was no observable seasonal increase in the beginning of the winter season as usual (from November to January). This makes the present lack of seasonal decrease understandable.

In a recent study by the IEER entitled "Trends and careers in the software industry" the current situation of the software industry is examined. The analysis deals with the question of what trends can be observed in recent and current developments of the sector as well as what changes delegate the likely future orientation of the software industry. In order to achieve our goal it is not only important to deal with regional and global trends, but also to discuss the features and history of some typical companies of the software industry.

Results of the IEER Business Climate Survey – April 2014

In 2012, there was a greater economic downturn than expected in Hungary (-1.8%) as the gap between the actual level of production and its level before the crisis got deeper again. The biggest drop occurred in the last quarter of 2012 (-2.5% compared to the same period last year, according to seasonally and calendar-adjusted, balanced data). However, according to the currently available data of GDP in the last year reports that the recession is not deepening further and the Hungarian economy is leaving its lowest point. According to the new results of the IEER Business Climate Index a further positive changes can be expected. The IEER Business Climate Index rose to +30 points in April 2014 from +23 points in October 2013.

The aim of the following paper is to unfold some factors that affect the young skilled workers’ chances of getting a job, doing further studies and using the learned profession at work or school. The survey examined the start of the labour market career of young skilled workers who have finished trade school or vocational school in the previous year. The survey focused on the question whether the skilled entrants could or wanted to enter the labour market in a 9-months long period after finishing trade school or vocational school. The results are based on a joint database of yearly databases between 2009 and 2012 that contains data of 10,104 young skilled workers. The results show that higher educated parents’ children have better chances on the labour market and unemployed fathers’ children encounter a higher risk of getting unemployed. The chance of getting a job or using the learned profession in a job or further studies is increased by choosing the profession matching the personal interests, by fulfilling a traineeship at a company, good scholastic records, knowledge of foreign languages and getting a high-school graduation. Further studying results in tangible wage premiums in the short run and in a labour market position stabilized by the skills of getting new knowledge in the long run. As a conclusion we believe that acquiring good general knowledge and studying skills is very important for young skilled workers: the continuously renewing requirements of the labour market and the frequent change of jobs and professions make lifelong learning necessary, thus improving flexibility and skills of knowledge renewal became an important task of the vocational training system.