Hungarian job market misses 30-40 thousand computer engineers

As we reported, there were 22,000 open jobs in the Hungarian IT sector in 2016. The situation worsened a lot since then. Some CEOs told the ICT Association of Hungary that they even had to withdraw from contracts and agreements because of the lack of workforce. Thus, the trend turned over: it is not the companies that choose their employees, but computer engineers choose where they want to work – reported nepszava.hu.

SME sector in trouble

The ICT Association of Hungary (IVSZ) researched the lack of workforce in the Hungarian IT sector. They talked with 136 CEOs of IT companies about the challenges caused by labour shortage they had to face in the first half of 2018.

One of the CEOs said that they had to withdraw from contracts and one of their important projects almost failed because other companies enticed some of their key staff members with higher wages.

According to their answers, labour shortage

threatens mostly the small enterprises.

Skyrocketing wages

This is because wages increase astonishingly. Today the monthly gross salary of junior developers is 400-600 thousand HUF (EUR 1,300-2,000) while seniors can get even 1.5 million HUF (EUR 5,000) for their work. In comparison, the average gross salary in Hungary is less than 1,000 EUR, at the moment. Only multinational companies can pay such high salaries without any problem because clients do not want to pay more for the service. However, without higher fees, thicker paychecks are unimaginable in case of the SME sector.

Enterprises have to deal with not only recruiting new workforce but also with maintaining their employees. Fluctuation is huge because

there are new opportunities almost everywhere.

One of the CEOs said that today maintaining workforce is more important than recruiting. However, most businesses still concentrate on the latter – he added. Another CEO said that while the American Y-Z generation (25-40-year-olds) spends an average of 2.6 years in a workplace, even huge companies in Hungary regard it as a success if one of their engineers works for them for 8-10 months.

In consequence, some CEOs do not discipline their employees because

they are afraid of losing them.

Businesses have not adapted yet

Thus, the prior trend turned over: it is not the companies that choose their employees, but computer engineers choose the companies they want to work for. However, companies could not yet adapt to this new rule – says Barbara Fazekas, Board Member of the IVSZ and co-founder of Green Fox Academy. They offer the same package as years ago, but employees refuse to accept it – she added. For them

not only high salaries are important

but also a friendly and inspirational working environment, home office and the possibility to develop. Thus, IVSZ is going to create a detailed program package for companies in autumn – according to Fazekas.

Furthermore, it is a huge problem that even computer engineer

graduates have to learn for months or even a year

until they can work alone because their knowledge does not meet the requirements. Thus, most companies took teaching into their own hands providing scholarships, offering courses and financing academies. However, this is not a solution for small companies lacking both money and workforce for internal training.

In fact, there are problems even with senior computer engineers. For example, most CEOs complain that they lack leadership skills and thus; it is hard to find somebody who can work entirely alone even for management salaries.

Labour shortage everywhere

As we already reported, Hungary struggles hard with

labour shortage which affects almost every sector of the economy.

In fact, the most problematic areas are public transport and service, tourism and IT. However, the issue also affects the public sector greatly. To make matters worse, even the lack of doctors and nurses is getting worse. The reason is simple: low wages and bad working conditions.

Thus, many people already left Hungary and moved to a Western-European country. In fact,

6 pc of the people born in Hungary already live abroad,

but Hungary misses badly these professionals.

Source: nepszava.hu