Hungary

Hungary Hungary

Sebestyén Németh-Tóth Recruitment Team Lead, Cpl Hungary sebestyen.nemeth-toth@cpl.com

Regional challenges in the labour market - Hungary

We managed to fully overcome the challenges caused by the epidemic, and by spring 2022 the di erence was already being felt. Demands that had previously been frozen are now back. After the epidemic and the di cult recovery period, our partners came knocking on our door with new demands. As a result, our competent candidates now had a wider range of opportunities to choose from, not only in IT but also in Corporate Finance, SSC and Engineering.

However, Hungary is not alone with its di culties, with new threats emerging that a ect both the salary needs of workers and the opportunities o ered by companies. One such di culty has been the rising rate of in ation throughout the year, which has persisted until the end of the year. Measures taken by the Hungarian government to mitigate this lasted until the end of the year in the form of various price caps that had no lasting e ects. We expect that the high energy prices and the overall signi cantly increased cost of living will positively correlate with the wage demands of candidates in 2023.

Changing in job trends

Last year, it was already apparent that our SSC partners were beginning to see Hungary as a strategic location for support functions. The demand for not

only Customer Support functions, but also for Finance, Engineering, and HR searches is

increasing. Some of the jobs have been migrated from other countries due to the favorable conditions in Hungary. (e.g. corporate tax; a wide range of languages are available). Another part of them is a group of newly created positions. This way not only

new projects but also new centers are formed in Hungary.

In 2023 this trend is only strengthened by the fact that similar requests from our smaller partners appeared not only in the capital but also in the countryside.

More and more controllers, logistics specialists, and engineers are wanted in other parts of Hungary.

Salary expectations equal living cost

Candidate-determined salary demands are growing faster than usual, thanks to a loss of faith in the stability of the cost of living. In addition to their salary

requirements, employees are also specifying the amount they consider important as part of their

benefits package to keep up with inflation. If this continues to be the case in the future, employers will

need to consider developing a pay-strategy that can keep up with the increasing demands at each experience level in order to retain candidates.

Some of our partners already have initiatives in place to accomplish this, while others look at non-wage supplements.

Resilient employers - Increasing salary with evolving compensation package

In 2022, a quarter of the companies implemented a wage increase of between 5 and 9 %, most often we can nd an increase of between 10 and 36 % among Hungarian companies - this year 39 % of them implemented a general salary increase of this proportion. A universal wage increase of more than 14 % was implemented by 29 % of employers. In

addition to the revised wage structure, several players in the Hungarian labor market, together with our own partners, have come up with unique reward packages.

One of our partners o ers a standard salary

increase for all new employees in their first

year, on top of a joining bonus. In addition, another company in our portfolio o ers its employees a Cafeteria allowance of several million HUF per year (from which employees can cover the cost of a company car, claim a petrol card, but also keep the amount as an extra bene t in accordance with Hungarian law).

Of course, private health insurance is always included. Most companies also o er a discount on the price of their products for their employees. An attractive office environment also became a selling point - newly built and fully equipped (gym, restaurant, bar)

company headquarters combined with the hybrid working model have proved to be attractive to employees in Hungary.

The gap between expectations and reality

The above solutions might be viable in the changing Hungarian market, and potentially can help reset the balance between what companies demand and what the market o ers. Constant discussion with our

partners became even more important in order to get an aligned picture of what a given salary can

buy in the ever-evolving market. We believe that setting correct expectations and always assisting our partners with up-to-date information is a good strategy, and increases the e ciency of the work of both parties. Especially in larger companies, it is known that internal recruitment is often overloaded, there is no time to explore the labor market conditions, and for this reason, the company miscalculates the salary range and expects an experience level accordingly. In the summer of 2022, companies somewhat scaled back the intensity of their recruitment, but there is still no noticeable change in the labor market. In Hungary,

therefore, the need for external recruitment

consultancy is greater than ever. In such a di cult situation, properly structured headhunting can identify and locate the bottleneck in the labor market where the top of the pay band meets the minimum experience level expected. Help is not lost even when the candidate pool is completely nite - this is when we can shape our partners' vision with well-supported arguments.

Stagnant labor market

Now in 2023, we only detect a moderate slowdown in our labor market, as the major players (among our partners) have been able to keep up with the market changes in Hungary (in ation) by raising their wage bands. It is yet unclear whether companies' o ers (both large and small companies) can meet candidates' expectations long-term, and sustain that throughout 2023.

Most in demand

TOP 5 most in-demand languages in the SSC Sector:

• German • French • Dutch • Italian • Swedish

The most desirable positions in SSC:

• Service Desk Agents (IT Support) • Customer Support Representatives (Order Management) • AP Accountant • AR Accountant

Most in-demad roles in Corporate Finance:

• Group FP&A Analyst • Group FP&A Junior Manager • Financial Controlling – Senior Analyst • Financial Controlling – Junior Manager • Treasury Analyst

The most desirable roles in IT:

• Fullstack developer • Backend developer • Database developer • Technical support

Most in-demand programming languages:

• Java • Phython • Javascript, • C++/C# • SQL (Database) • PHP • HTML