Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has underlined how Hungary's economic growth is a "shared success" from which everybody, including pensioners, should benefit.
During the signing ceremony of next year’s minimum wage agreement, the prime minister said that creating a work-based economy was among his government’s top priorities. “If we have jobs, we have everything; that is the baseline,” he said, adding that the government was continually working to cut taxes on labour, and those taxes had been reduced by 25 percent since 2010. He said ensuring higher wages and maintaining competitiveness at the same time required “careful consideration”, adding that his government had “realised that the representation of people must be the government’s focus, and this has yielded a common basis for unions and employers to strike an agreement”.
The prime minister said the minimum wage will be worth HUF 200,000 (EUR 548) before tax and the minimum wage for skilled workers HUF 260,000. Also, the wages of people in fostered job schemes would also be “significantly” raised, he said. Between 2002 and 2010, during the previous governments, the real value of the minimum wage decreased by 2 percent, while in other countries of the region it increased by 30 percent, PM Orbán added.
Photo credit: MTI