HR Fest, which its organizers describe as the country’s most attended HR conference series, journeyed to Pécs (200 km south of Budapest by road) on March 20. Guest speakers included Olympic champion, career coach and university lecturer Ágnes Kovács and TV presenter Áron Kovács, CEO of Game Tower Ltd. In total, the day-long event featured more than 70 speakers and was attended by nearly 500 people.
The festival’s central theme was changes in the labor market in Baranya County. The economy of Pécs and its surroundings is characterized by industry, agriculture, the diversity of small and medium-sized enterprises and the dynamic development of creative industries.
Crucial questions were how to ensure young people can find their place in the labor market in this environment and what can make Pécs attractive to investors? Martina Almási, director of investment promotion at the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency and Dávid Siptár, director of innovation management and economic relations at the University of Pécs, discussed this very issue, moderated by Dávid Jakab, head of government relations at WHC.
According to the experts, the region’s SMEs and the 4,500 graduates coming out of the university every year will be the driving force for Pécs to promote investment. In support of this, the university will seek to channel newly graduated students directly into local companies, while green regional investments will help Hungarian suppliers to expand.
Following the round table, Balázs Szakály, head of payroll at WHC, and Máté Szabó Balázs, stand-up performer at Dumaszínház, injected humor into the challenges of payroll, where they highlighted common mistakes and solutions, to the appreciation of the audience.
The region’s latest investment, which will create 450 jobs, was examined on the Business Builders by HRmaster stage. British American Tobacco announced in 2024 that it would set up a new center in Pécs to manufacture its smokeless products.
Péter Kórósi and Igor Gmaz from BAT Pécs Tobacco Factory Ltd., Viktor Göltl, managing director of WHC, and Balázs Varró, managing director of ESG Esquire, discussed recruitment issues, innovation and the impact of the approximately HUF 60 billion investment on the labor market in the region.
The investment will make the Pécs plant one of the largest players in the industry on a global scale, which will not only bring in the recruitment of skilled local labor, including the retention of young talents, but will also enable the development and growth of the entire logistics chain in the long term.
WHC Group has been a professional sponsor of HR Fest, which has attracted more than 8,000 participants annually since 2019. The next event in the series will be the Business Fest held in Budapest on June 12.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of April 22, 2025.
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