The Hungarian government has brought forward an 8 percent wage hike for healthcare professionals that was originally scheduled for November this year.
Zoltán Balog, minister of Human Resources said the pay rise will be retroactively implemented from January, following the latest round of talks between the government and the unions.
The increase is the last stage of a wage plan agreed in 2016, the minister said. Wages will have risen by an average 53 percent since 2016 with this last hike, he added.
Ambulance workers will receive the current 8 percent raise on top of the 10 percent specifically allotted to that sector, he said. The raise will affect 80,000 employees in total.
Ágnes Cser, head of the Democratic Union of Hungarian Social and Health Care Workers (MSZ EDDSZ), welcomed the decision as an “enormous achievement”.