Optimism of Hungarian Workers Declines

Hungarian workers' optimism has declined after the negative economic consequences of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the epidemic measures, and the uncertainty caused by these measures are already having an impact on the labor market, BNP Paribas Cardif Insurance, a credit insurance company, said on Tuesday, based on a joint survey with Medián Institute for Public Opinion and Market Research.

The BNP Paribas Cardif Labour Market Stability Index for the second quarter of the year recorded a reading of 75 points, down two points compared to the same period last year and three points compared to the previous quarter.

BNP Paribas Cardif Insurance, in partnership with Median, created the index in 2014 to measure the stability of the labor market from the perspective of workers. The index is based on a face-to-face survey of 1,200 people and the sample is representative of the adult Hungarian population by age, gender, education and type of settlement.

According to the survey, 36% of workers in the second quarter of the year started to worry that they might lose their job within a year, an increase of eight percentage points compared to the previous quarter.

According to the release, rising uncertainty is also reflected in the fact that while 61% of respondents were confident in their current job for more than five years in the spring, this figure has now fallen to 53%.

42% of respondents' households could survive up to three months if the main earner lost his or her job. In contrast, the proportion of those who could survive between four months and a year has jumped nearly eight percentage points to 33%, and 22% could survive more than a year.

In the event of job loss, 69% of respondents said they would have someone in the household to rely on, 64% could borrow money from a family member or relative with whom they do not share a household, and 55% could ask a friend to help. 28% of respondents said that if they lost their job, they would have insurance to get money, the survey found.

It highlights a significantly positive development in workers' optimism about the extent to which they feel they could easily find a new job that matches their skills if they lost their job or were made redundant. 54% of respondents said they would find a job easily or very easily, up four percentage points on the same period last year, which continues to give cause for optimism.