Hungary – Is Hungary’s strong anti-immigrationist rhetoric being quietly undermined by its own government? The facts suggest this may be the case.
Hungary, under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has positioned itself as the champion of anti-immigration policies. In doing so the country has earned the admiration of other opponents of migration around the world, including former President Donald Trump.
But Orbán only speaks against illegal migration. As a substantial number of its workers head towards Western Europe in search of higher wages, and as its able-bodied population shrinks while having to support a larger number of older citizens, economic necessity demands that the country begin looking for labour elsewhere.
According to portfolio.hu, there were 95,000 guest workers in Hungary as of September; at the same time a year earlier, the number was 82,500, according to official data from KSH, the country’s office of statistics. The data suggests that there is an ongoing expansion of approximately 1,000 workers per month.
While many of these guest workers are coming from European Union and European Free Trade Association countries, their number has been decreasing in recent years, while those coming from non-European countries – especially Asia – has been rising significantly. The data indicates that since 2019, the number of non-European workers in Hungary has gone from 35,000 to 73,000.
It is mostly the big manufacturing corporations that are driving this change, especially as they are the only ones which have the necessary resources to recruit from outside Europe. The government itself has recognized this need and enacted legislation this summer to make it easier for non-European workers to get work visas for the country.
Some projections indicate that Hungary could need as many as 500,000 workers to supply its growing industrial sector in the coming years, with the native workforce only being adequate to provide perhaps 150,000.
Some local politicians from Orbán’s party, Fidesz, are concerned that this rising immigration could hurt their chances in upcoming elections, given that the employment of non-European workers goes against what has been the main plank of their platform since 2015. Others argue that this new influx could in fact help to protect Hungarian jobs, since some companies that also employ Hungarians may be forced to go out of business if they cannot hire enough workers.