DEVELOPMENT OF MIGRATION POTENTIAL IN HUNGARY FROM 2000 UNTIL TODAY

Abstract

Hearing the words “international migration”, two things might come to our mind. One of them is the emigration process and the other is the wave of refugees. In our study, we examined the changes of the number of employees emigrating from Hungary from 2000 until today. Nowadays, the examination of the migration potential is an important topic in Hungary, since the rate of Hungarian emigrants started to grow after 2006 and the rate of growth became even faster after 2010. The reason of the acceleration was the opening of the Austrian and German labour market. The actuality of the topic is based on the fact that international emigration merges the labour market’s processes, influences the given country’s employment level, moreover it has an influencing role on the rate of wages. Emigration from a given state has several reasons: natural disasters, war, marginalization, economic reasons, etc. In our study, we examine emigration caused by economic reasons. We have to take into consideration that measuring emigration processes is a difficult task, due to the lack of data. The reason of the deficiency is that those who leave the country, often forget to report their leaving. From 1 March 2013, only the permanent foreign settlement should be reported towards the administration (District Office, Consulate). Earlier, temporary (more than 3 months) settlement was also obligatory to be reported. Many of the leaving Hungarians do not report their leaving, however working abroad for more than 3 months should be reported towards social insurance organizations and tax authorities. I would like to emphasise that my migration potential presentation does not show a direct correlation with the actual migration. However, this study might show the expected movement rates and the composition of emigrants.