The Hungarian government will continue public sector wage rises next year, it has been announced.
The Finance Ministry’s state secretary for employment policy revealed that salaries for soldiers and police will rise another 5 percent next year.
Sándor Bodó said the average salaries of Hungarians in these sectors will have risen by 50 percent, on average, since 2015.
Healthcare professionals will get another 8 percent pay rise from November of 2019, he added. The government has already launched a series of pay increases in the sector in 2016.
Bodó said the government's aim is to ensure that everyone who can work gets a job, and the 2019 budget has been prepared with this in mind.
According to MTI, the new tax package also includes several measures that affect the labor market.
He said tax allowances will be more targeted and they will be deductible up to the minimum wage instead of the former threshold of 100,000 HUF (320 EUR).
Ever since 2010, full employment has been the main target of employment policy, and thanks to the government measures introduced so far, the current level of employment is close to this target, he said.
Some 750,000 more people hold jobs than eight years ago and the unemployment rate is at a historic low of 3.7 percent, Bodó said.
Thanks to a six-year wage agreement, real wages increased by more than 10 percent in the first third of 2018, following a two-digit increase last year, he added.