Our latest survey in the SME Outlook – conducted in October 2009 – focused not only on the business situation of SMEs, but also on their opinions about the quality of the services of government institutions and offices, about the administrative burdens and about the effects of financial crisis on the SME sector.

The Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research - in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, with the Public Employment Service (ÁFSZ), and with the county chambers of commerce and industry - conducted a research on the expected demand of labor and short-term business expectations of 7151 enterprises. The results are representative in terms of the distibution of the size enterprises and the economic sector they belong to.

In the research, we also took into consideration the business situation of enterprises, their anticipations for the future, their applied strategies they use to alleviate the negative effects of the recession, their expected demand for labour in 2010, and their difficulties in recruting. Also, our analysis concentrated on the different employment forms and their effects on the enterprises. Our results cover the last four years.

According to the conjuncture indicators, the recession has already touched its bottom and recent analyses already show the signs of recovery. General tendency shows that recession hit especially the well-performing sectors of economy and as such accelerated equalization – the significant relapse of developed regions – in 2009.

Our study shows that 86% of enterprises took some efforts to deal with the effects of the recession, in most cases they reduced expenditures or tried to stabilize their market positions. Another result of the recession is, however, that recruiting became easier: while in 2008 14% of the enterprised found difficult to recruit staff, this number dropped by 2009 to 5%.

All the three datasets are available free of charge at the following web address: http://www.mmpp.hu/

The survey on the perspective of enterprises about the recession had been repeated in June 2009 by Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research.We provide analysis not only on the general characteristics of enterprises and different indicators of conjecture, but also on borrowings, foreign currency risks and financial disciplines of enterprises and the preventive actions they took in order to avoid the negative effects of the recession. The two datasets are available free of charge at the following web addresshttp://www.ola.gvi.hu/.

The results of the analysis revealed that the Hungarian enterprises take several preventive actions in order to avoid the negative effects of the recession. Companies with foreign ownership share and export-oriented companies are usually very adaptive to the new conditions. The analysis also reveals that one part of the enterprises were so extensively affected by the recession that they were technically forced to find every possible way to reduce the negative effects. This is why those companies who were involved in layoffs, most probably previously tried other ways to avoid the worst case scenario such as part-time working, reducing salary, delaying investments, or downsizing certain services. As such, layoffs and other downsizing programs are in auxiliary connection.

The key findings of the research were introduced to the public by giving a presentation in English at CIRET/KOF/GK Conference, Workshop on Sentiment Indicators and the Current Crisis on the 9th November 2009. See also: https://www.ciret.org/workshops/budapest/program. The analysis, the power point slides and the survey of the research (from March and June) can be found and downloaded in the appendix.

Our survey in the SME Outlook – conducted in July 2009 – focused not only on the business situation of SMEs, but also on their debts and potential involvements in chain indebtedness and responses to the economic recession.

Thisresearch program aims helping the regional development and training committees (RFKB – in Hungarian) in order to establish a quota of the maximum number of different vocational trainings. The research is based on IEER's own large-sample empiric survey from 2009. The survey asked about the opinion ofhiring institutes and organizations such as SME's, public offices and it also aimed finding out the opportunities that a recent graduates have on the labour market. In the analysis, we also evaluated the expected labour demand for vocational school graduates and compared the results to the expected number of recent graduates in 2012.

A research from July 2009 – with the collaboration of IEER and Kopint-Tárki Zrt. – was the first in Hungary aiming at providing an analysis about the negative effects of the recession on enterprises. Based on a survey from March 2009,we provide analysis not only on the general characteristics of enterprises and different indicators of conjecture, but also on borrowings, foreign currency risks and financial disciplines of enterprises and the preventive actions they took in order to avoid the negative effects of the recession. The dataset is available free of charge at the following web addresshttp://www.ola.gvi.hu/. The majority of the enterprises who took part in the survey realized a reduction in expenditure in order to manage the negative effects of the recession, 36% of them delayed the preplanned investments as well, around one third of the participant enterprises did not raised or lowered the salaries, and also one third temporarily downsized certain services.

The Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research in collaboration with the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry conducted a research between Hungarian economic entities that offer practical training to students enrolled in vocational programs. The aim of this research is to estimate the effects of the recent alterations - made by the Bajnai-cabinet - in the tax law on the number of student contracts. We conducted an online survey between May 4-11 2009, by contacting the representatives of enterprises that employ students with student contracts. Although we sent outmore than 1000 surveys, we got answers from 302 enterprises.

According to the results of the research, the changes in the law might lead to the settlement only of 1358 student contracts instead of 6201 (without the modifications of the law). Moreover, 75% of the respondents - above all the micro enterprises and SME's in the construction business told us that they will cancel some student contracts if the changes come into realization. As a result of the alterations in law, the total number of student contracts are expected to be dropped from 10,897 to 3501, all together a 74% decrease.

Our survey in the SME Outlook – conducted in April 2009 – focused not only on the business situation of SMEs, but also on their opinions about the economic recession.

IEER Business Climate Index significantly decreased compared to its value from last October. This tendency is also followed by the highly increasing pessimistic anticipations of Hungarian enterprises. The recession in real economy is so significant that it equally influences all sectors. Business climate anticipations, however, predict amelioration by the end of 2009.

Our latest survey in the SME Outlook – conducted in January 2009 – focused not only on the business situation of SMEs, but also on the characteristics of chain indebtedness and late payment among SMEs.