How can social dialogue contribute to the employment of third-country nationals in CEE? KEY MESSAGES of employers participating in the Recruit4Tomorrow project (HU, SK, SI, BG, HR) are now available in downloadable format.

Key findings of the Recruit4Tomorrow survey are now available in a compact and downloadable format.

The following study was carried out by employers in 5 countries - Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Slovenia - to identify the push and pull factors and drivers for the employment of third-country nationals in the partner countries. A study led by the University of Ljubljana, and aimed at helping the cooperation of social partners in the field and was supported by the European Commission.

The following study was carried out by employers in 5 countries - Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Slovenia - to identify the push and pull factors and drivers for the employment of third-country nationals in the partner countries. A study led by the University of Ljubljana, and aimed at helping the cooperation of social partners in the field and was supported by the European Commission.

Almost two years after the European Commission presented the proposal for a directive on fair and adequate minimum wages, it was adopted by a majority of EU Parliament members in September 2022. The Directive 2022/2041 on adequate minimum wages in the EU proposes mandatory criteria for increasing the minimum wage. This Policy Brief introduces the key aspects of the legislation and MGYOSZ's position on the transposition of the Directive in Hungary.

As the part of the strategic foresight project, we also carried out a questionnaire survey with 170 companies as part of its strategic foresight project. The COVID-19 epidemic has significantly transformed the labour market. The aim of the survey was to identify regional labour market differences and to identify potential jobs and job profiles for the future.

The first strategic foresight of MGYOSZ is an attempt to stimulate a common reflection on the future of the Hungarian labour market. Hungary is a small and open economy, and all global megatrends greatly impact its development. In the current rapidly changing economic circumstances, we believe it is very important to speak as economic stakeholders about how the future labour market may evolve in the face of so many powerful and unpredictable variables, especially because it is difficult to plan for these developments. Therefore, this paper aims not to help with planning as an impossible mission, but to stimulate collective thinking among practitioners and policymakers through a better understanding of the processes that affect our labour market and focus attention on the drivers that shape the future.

Hungarian vocational education and training aims to prepare young people to acquire the professional and transversal competencies and learning outcomes required by the knowledge-based society and economy and for lifelong renewal in line with the challenges of the 21st century.

The Mutual Learning Programme of MGYOSZ was implemented in the framework of the European Commission's CORE-Capacity Building of Resilient Employers in Hungary project in 2023-24.
The aim of this program was to facilitate exchange of experiences between employers’ organisations in different countries about capacity building. This document is the summary report of the program, aims to present not only the summary of experiences, but to introduce various best practises of our partner organisations.

The two and a half years long project will be implemented in an international consortium, led by the Budapest Business School. IR (Integrated Reporting) is of common use in the world of large (>500 employees) national or multinational companies (See: EU Directive 2014/95, Annex 6).
The Directive does not impose the same requirement on SMEs to avoid overburdening them.
The original idea of the INTEREST project is to try to derive from this experience the more adaptable elements possible to SMEs and transform them to guidance and training materials for SMEs on IR practical issues. Instillation of integrated thinking in the entrepreneurial mind-sets is a high priority of the INTEREST project. More information at the project's website: https://www.interest-project.eu/

Business Hungary takes part in the organization of several international projects. On the following link you can read more details about these projects.

We are glad to inform you that our project proposal "IOSHA - Improving the OSH (Occupational Safety and Health) awareness of employers and employees in CEE" get approval from the European Commission. Detailed information about the project aims, work programme, partners etc.you can read here.

Due to demographic ageing, a common and undisputabie European feature, older workers will constitute an ever-increasing proportion of our labour force in the future. The econimic growth rate in the EU is set to decline with the ageing of the population, due to the reduction in the number of working-age citizens. Increasing the employment rate of people workers between 55 and 60 years of age and dealyng their exit from the labour market are thus vital components of the Lisbon Strategy.

InnoSME intends to address SMEs operating in ICT sectors that are open to improve their innovation capacities through CIP and FP7 EU framework programs and to establish a network between them to facilitate their initiatives. The project does not reach beneficiaries directly but via organizations (business federations, chambers, development agencies, etc.). MGYOSZ and INNOVA North Great Plain Innovation Agency are involved in the activities as partners from Hungary.
What can our member companies and professional associations gain from the participation?
Free consultancy, information, partner search, services, access to web-based tool, an interactive platform. Developing innovation capacity is guaranteed by a self diagnosis system. Interest in the project can be sent to aruszanov@mgyosz.be by filling in the attached Participation Form or directly at http://www.innosme.eu/page.asp?n=registerstep1&lan=7.

Implementation Roadmap:

15 May 2007: Partners’ meeting in Budapest
14 June 2007: Partners’ meeting in Brussels
18 September 2007: National Workshop in Debrecen
20 September 2007: National Workshop in Budapest



20 September 2007

Two workshops are scheduled for this year in Hungary. The first one in Debrecen on 18 September organized by INNOVA and the second at MGYOSZ Head Office in Budapest on 20 September. MGYOSZ cooperating partners: Joint Venture Association, the Hungarian Association for Innovation (MISZ) and the Hungarian Association of IT Companies (IVSZ).
Aim of the event is twofold. Once to familiarize company representatives with FP7 and CIP framework programs and give an overview on the national/regional SME development initiatives. To enhance entrepreneurial mind, best practices will be presented by Hungarian companies who successfully participated in FP6 projects. Secondly, advising those companies that are more advanced in submitting proposals to EU program calls or need consultancy for innovative capacity development.

Implementation Roadmap:
18 January 2006: Kick off meeting in Ljubljana
18 May 2006: Partners’ meeting in Budapest
22 September 2006: Partners’ meeting in Prague
15 November 2006: Final Conference in Ljubljana
Inbetween national seminars were held in the partner countries and researches were conducted with the contribution of social and company experts.

Results:
As a result of our research, we elaborated a brochure published in the languages of all the participating countries. The main results presented are the following:
o Labour migration within the new member states, and from the new states to the old, has been lower than expected. The number of foreigners living and working in Central Europe is low compared to western countries of the EU.
o The immigration and emigration of workforce has not created disturbances on the labour markets; however, youth and brain drain is a fact. We have observed that workers from the new member states who leave for better-paid employment to the old EU member states are replaced by either workers from other new member states or from outside the EU. These workers often have lower qualifications than those leaving the country.
o The emigration of skilled workforce has not increased wages in certain sectors or professions and the immigration of cheaper workforce has not lowered wage levels.
o Immigrant workers have the same rights and enjoy almost the same social protection as domestic workers.
As a conclusion we believe that it is necessary to open our labour markets even further to workers from third countries. We call for national migration policies that suit the needs of our respective labour markets and the development of our societies. Business and employers associations are prepared to play a more active role in migration and integration policy of foreign workforce, as both topics will definitely increase in importance in the future. We strongly recommend the abolishment of all transitional restrictions on free movement of workforce currently in place and call for full free movement for Romania and Bulgaria starting with their entry into the EU in 2007.

Implementation:
The seminar was attended by the European Social Partner organizations and their national counterparts. An independent expert was engaged to prepare a dossier that served as a basis for discussion at the Hungarian seminar. This dossier comprised interviews with the representatives of the relevant partner federations as well as the analysis of the existing international data and documents.
Results:
The summary points out that restructuring followed roughly the same scheme in CEEC in the 90s but pro-active reaction and anticipating challenges were not considered a priority that time. Participants were seeking the answer how social partners can provide support to the victims of restructuring besides financial allowances. Other means could be LLL, facilitating mobility between regions and countries, fighting against grey economy, spreading part-time employment, developing and supporting SMEs so that they can create new jobs. The final report will be discussed by the EU Social Dialogue Committee and the European Social Partners will design their work program in a way that enables social partners in CEEC to live up to the challenges of the new economic and social changes. The importance of the dissemination conference in Brussels is reflected in the high level of representatives attending the event: amongst others Commissioner Spidla and the Secretary Generals of the European Social Partner organizations addressed the audience.

It was concluded that the same areas for improvement applied equally to the trade unions and employers. They defined an action plane comprising six points for the future: actions listed below were considered to be both focused and achievable.

1. Create a bipartite forum for discussion. This could be either formal or informal;
2. Work harder to improve internal and inter-organisational coordination;
3. Continue to focus on the development of language skills;
4. Create a database of available experts;
5. Improve information exchange and information flows;
6. Study, and learn lessons from, the implementation of framework agreements.