The 'Europe 2020' strategy, adopted in June, has set an EU-wide goal of increasing the employment rate among 20-64 year olds to 75% by 2020. According to government sources, the European Commission has unofficially proposed Hungary a national target of between 68% and 70%.
The new centre-right government, elected in the spring, has declared its intention to create one million jobs by the same year, 2020. If it succeeds in this ambitious venture, Hungary may even go beyond the suggested goal. Yet the country – which will assume the rotating EU presidency in January 2011 – has not yet decided on an exact national target.
The international standard for measuring employment rates is the 15-64 age range. This is what is used by the International Labour Organisation and most of EU member states, including Hungary. Yet using the 20-64 age group for Europe 2020 is justified by the fact that in almost all member states, 15-19 year olds are obliged to attend secondary school.
The current EU-wide employment rate among 20-64 year olds stands at 69%. In Hungary it is just 60.4%, meaning that real efforts will need to be made to reach the unofficially proposed 68-70% target.
Government devising new job strategy
When questioned by EurActiv.hu, the European Commission did not want to comment on the supposed national target. The spokesperson said that ''no numbers'' had been established for Hungary’s employment rate. Officially, the Commission and the Hungarian government will meet in September for bilateral talks.
The Hungarian Ministry for the National Economy did not want to comment on the subject either, repeating the new government's pledge to create a million jobs over the next ten years.
''We will design our national targets for the 2020 strategy according to this aim,'' its press office replied. According to a source in the ministry, experts have already worked out several scenarios and the government is set to choose one shortly.
If the one million jobs are successfully created and filled, Hungary could attain an employment rate of more than 70% as "inactive" workers would re-enter the labour market, stated an expert in the country's statistical office.
Currently, there are 1.9 million inactive workers in Hungary – in other words those who have not registered themselves as unemployed and actively seeking work. The statistics expert also pointed to the fact that unemployment is expected to fall as the country emerges from the economic crisis.
