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The number of employed people aged 15–74 reached 4.646 million in March, while broader first-quarter figures point to a modest softening in the labor market.
In the January–March period, average employment totaled 4.627 million, down by 65,000 year on year. Employment among men fell by 36,000 to 2.457 million, while the number of employed women declined by 29,000 to 2.17 million.
Domestic primary labor market employment accounted for 4.44 million jobs, a decrease of 85,000 from the same period a year earlier. The number of public workers stood at 69,000, while 119,000 Hungarians were employed abroad.
The employment rate for those aged 15–64 slipped to 74.8%, reflecting declines in both the working-age population and the number of employed. The rate was 78.6% for men and 70.9% for women.
Average unemployment for the first quarter was 226,000, corresponding to a jobless rate of 4.7%. The number of unemployed men was 122,000, compared with 104,000 women, translating into rates of 4.7% and 4.6%, respectively.
Job search times remained relatively long, averaging 12.2 months. About 35.3% of unemployed people had been seeking work for less than three months, down 8.1 percentage points from a year earlier. The share of those searching for four to 11 months rose by 7.7 percentage points to 28.4%, while the proportion of long-term unemployed — those looking for work for at least a year — was broadly unchanged at 36.3%.
Separate administrative data from the National Employment Service showed that the number of registered job seekers fell by 4.1% year on year to 223,000 at the end of March.
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