Autumn 2012 marked the seventh collaboration between the Hungarian Labour Inspectorate and the Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) for an empirical study into the short-term forecasts of the economic prospects of the private sector and the labour market decisions of firms. In the latest survey into short-term labour market projections, 6,782 company managers were interviewed about current and future workforce prospects.
The results showed that a slightly positive intention to hire more workers can be detected in the expectations of the Hungarian private sector for the coming year. While in 2012 the number of companies that increased their workforce was 10 percentage points higher than those that decreased their employee numbers, in 2013 the corresponding figure was 14 percent. Accordingly, more companies are expected to hire next year than was the case for this year.

In 2013, the likely scenario is of 0.2 percent decrease in the number of employees in the private sector. A pessimistic scenario sees a 0.8 percent decline while an optimistic scenario sees a 1 percent increase in the number of employees in the private sector. The likely scenario is that the number of industrial employees may grow by 0.5 percent. By contrast, all other economic sectors are likely to fall, especially agriculture, where a 1.8 percent decline is expected. It is important to emphasize that the agricultural sector is also expected to decrease under the optimistic scenario as well.

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