The joint empirical research of the National Labor Office (NLO) and HCCI Institute for Economic and Enterprise Research (IEER) on the short-term economic outlook and labor market decisions of private sector firms was conducted for the eighth time in September and October 2014. For the latest survey of the Short-term Labor Market Forecast the staff of NLO and IEER interviewed the managers of 7,179 firms about their current and expected demand for labor.

According to the data the Hungarian economy did not reach its pre-crisis level at the end of last year despite the fact that 2014 generated a GDP growth which had not been seen in a long time. The engine of Hungarian industrial growth continued to be industrial exports, especially exports to Germany.

Based on the results of employee number changes, the employment rate has steadily increased in 2014. The number of employees in the private sector has increased in the first and second quarters by 2.3 and 2.8 percent respectively. According to the forecast of IEER, based on the expectations for 2015, the employment index is expected to stagnate. The likely scenario is that in 2015 the number of employees may increase by 1.3 percentage point for the construction sector and 0.9 percentage point for retail. In contrast, a 7.5 percentage point decrease is expected for services while a 9.3 percentage point decline is likely for mainly exporting firms.