IEER Business Climate Index shows a turning-point in the anticipations of Hungarian enterprises for the future. Between April and October 2009, the IEER Business Climate Index increased from -18% to -9%. Our latest results show that the economic recession touched its bottom in Q3 2009. As such, our hypothesis that predicted slight amelioration by the end of 2009 seems to be true.

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 majority of the colony of Chinese and Vietnamese people in Hungary are first generation economy migrant, who either have two homes, or who are closely connected to their country of origin by psychological or social ways - due to the globalization patterns and technological changes. The Institue for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) presents a qualitative research on the characteristics and types of labour among East Asians in Hungary

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.

Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour conducted a research on the expected demand of labour and short-term business expectations of 7406 enterprises.

Our latest survey in the SME Outlook – conducted in October 2008 – focused not only on the business situation of SMEs, but also on their opinions about the economic and political environment.