According to the agreement, a significant part of the company’s employees will receive higher wages in 2019, while the current rules of the Collective Agreement remain in force unchanged in terms of overtime and working hours.

Despite what the press release calls an unfavorable tax environment, Spar will uphold its loyalty program which provides further fringe benefits to workers. The multinational will also provide a 13th month wage. The firm will cover the implemented benefits entirely from its own resources, the press release noted. 

“The number of our colleagues will continue to grow in 2019, primarily because of our new developments, and because decreasing the pressure on priority areas is one of Sparʼs goals,” says Márk Maczelka, head of communications at Spar Hungary. “Furthermore, our collective contractʼs points regarding overtime and allocated cumulative working hours will stay valid, maximizing the amount of prescribed overtime at 200 hours, and the allocated cumulative working hours at four months. The company, in agreement with the trade unions does not intend to change this. As a result of the measures taken last year, our fluctuation rate dropped by another 6 percentage points over the course of one year, currently close to 26%.”