47% of Hungarian Firms Spend More on Employer Branding

The role of employer branding in the corporate sector to find and retain employees will continue to grow: 47% of companies surveyed will increase their employer branding budgets in 2025, despite the economic challenges, according to the Brandfizz Employer Branding Compass National Employer Brand Survey sent to MTI.

The survey says only 7% of those who plan less for this purpose and a negligible 2% of those that do not spend any money on this purpose.

The survey found that more employers are planning to increase headcount (56%) than in 2024 (53%), but there are sectors where retaining key staff is more on the agenda.

Average employee life cycles have shortened, and the long-term trend is a steady increase in turnover, which needs to be taken into account – the survey also highlighted these issues, they added.

They pointed out that while last year, reducing turnover was the second most important employer branding performance indicator, this year, after increasing the number of applicants, awareness came second. Employer branding continues to be the responsibility of HR in most companies and the number of companies with a separate, dedicated department or specialist responsible for employer branding has increased significantly. 42% of companies also involve an external agency specialized in employer branding.

Ádám Horváth, one of the founders of the Brandfizz agency, who is also vice-president of the European Employer Branding Association, told MTI that employer branding offers a wide range of opportunities for companies to increase their efficiency or save significant costs, which is of interest to many companies in the current economic situation.

According to Ádám Horváth, companies can cut costs, for example, if they can halve the time needed to fill an open position thanks to employer branding, or if they can fill as many vacancies as possible through their own channels without hiring a headhunter. These and other similar factors related to recruitment together indicate a return on investment in employer branding.

The national survey of 443 business leaders, HR and marketing managers and employer branding experts covered 14 industries, HUF 23,692 billion in turnover and 257,408 employees.