In an economic situation unsettled by the pandemic, minimum wage increases have been pared across the EU, with the national currency averaging 3 per cent this year, up from 8.4 per cent last year – quotes The Eurofound report, published on Thursday, is the G7.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has repeatedly stated that “there is more in one step” to raise the current level of the minimum wage to HUF 200,000, which would be 578 euros. That amount would be enough to catch up with the Czech level of €579 in the study, if they didn’t go up there either.
The portal also cites a blog published at the same time with the report that most member states raised their legally binding minimum wage level by between 1 and 5 percent in 2021. Six member states from Central and Eastern Europe raised more than 5% (Latvia Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Lithuania), while four member states have frozen these wages (Belgium, Spain, Greece and Estonia).
For non-euro countries, the exchange rate was calculated for the month prior to the increase.
It is clear from Eurofound data that the Hungarian minimum wage in euros was lower by 2021 compared to last year, and only the Bulgarian minimum wage was lower than it.
This is also true given the strengthening of the forint in recent weeks, with the current Hungarian minimum wage of €483 at the time of writing, which is still below €487 level for 2020.
More details and Eurofund Your graph is shown here.
