Over 50% Jobs to Be Filled Require Language Skills

In 53% of the job advertisements posted since January last year, employers expect some language skills, while in the case of intellectual jobs the proportion is even higher, at 68%, Profession.hu reported on Tuesday with MTI, based on its recent analysis.

According to the job portal's survey, companies still expect English to be the language most in jobs requiring language skills, but in the past few years there has been a growing demand for German.

While in 2023, 57% of jobs requiring language skills were in English and only 32% in German, since 2024 the share of English has decreased to 48.3%, while that of German has increased to 41.8%, Profession.hu said.

“The reason for the increasing demand for German language skills is that the automotive industry is one of the main sectors of the Hungarian economy, in which German manufacturers and the supplier networks serving them play a prominent role as employers. In addition, Hungarian workers emigrating to Austria and returning from there form a significant group of employees, on whom many employers rely," Nikoletta Szigeti, head of Profession.hu, said.

French and Italian are the third and fourth most sought-after foreign languages on the Hungarian job market, but they account for a much smaller share of job advertisements requiring language skills: 0.6% of job advertisements in French and 0.3% in Italian.

In the hospitality, hotel and tourism sector, there are hardly any job advertisements that do not mention language skills as a condition, with 93.4% of the advertisements requiring knowledge of a foreign language. This is followed by IT, programming, development with 78.4%, and then business support centers (SSC) with 75.6%.

The largest difference in pay between jobs requiring language skills and those not requiring them is in the hospitality and tourism sector, at 23.5%. This is followed by finance and accounting, with an average difference of 14.6%, and then health and pharmaceuticals, with a difference of 13.5%, the portal said.