Hungarians Shun Work, Favor Welfare During Recession

[The Grim Squeaker]

Source

By Zoltan Simon
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Hungary’s jobless rate rose to a record through November, draining state coffers as the European Union’s most indebted eastern member hands out more in welfare payments. The problem isn’t just a shortage of work.
The Hungarian unit of Flextronics International Ltd., a Singapore-based electronics maker, set out to hire 900 people in November. More than 1,000 unemployed who were notified failed to apply, it said. The jobless rate rose to 10.5 percent in September-November from 9.9 percent in the previous three months, the statistics office in Budapest said today.
Hungary, which is relying on a $29 billion International Monetary Fund-led loan to stay afloat, has the European Union’s second-lowest employment rate after Malta. Low workforce participation threatens to stall economic growth at a time when Hungary needs extra revenue to wean itself off emergency financing. The former communist state is relying on exporters like Flextronics to generate growth.
“If we want to pinpoint the one factor that most restrains growth and hampers Hungary’s competitiveness, it has to be the low employment rate,” Finance Minister Peter Oszko said in a telephone interview yesterday.
The forint traded at 269.49 per euro at 9:01 a.m. in Budapest, from 269.25 late yesterday.

Deliberate Mistakes

Of the 1,400 people the local employment office sent to the Flextronics plant in the city of Zalaegerszeg, 225 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of Budapest, 249 showed up, said Mark Hetenyi, the Chief Financial Officer at the local unit of the company that supplies customers including Apple Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Several made deliberate mistakes in a competency test, preferring to stay on welfare, he said.
Hungary’s economy probably contracted 6.7 percent last year, the most since 1991, the government estimates. The economy will keep shrinking this year before returning to annual growth in 2011, according to the government.
The employment rate was 56.7 percent in 2008, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, compared with an EU- average of 65.9 percent and 63.9 percent for the 10 eastern European countries that joined the world’s biggest trading bloc in 2004.

‘Narcotic’

Employment in Hungary was kept high during the country’s four decades of communism, when being out of a job was considered a criminal offense. The transition to a market economy left many unskilled workers, including a large portion of the Gipsy minority known as Roma, without a job. Many unemployed people went into early retirement.
As a consequence, tax revenue dropped and welfare spending rose, forcing the government to finance the budget from loans. Borrowing became the “narcotic” that fueled the economy, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai wrote in a Dec. 28 article in Nepszabadsag newspaper.
Slower growth than in other parts of central Europe and swelling debt levels that kept the country from qualifying for the euro made Hungary more vulnerable to the global financial crisis as investors retreated from riskier markets.
Hungary’s bond market froze and the forint plunged in October 2008, forcing the government to obtain a loan from the IMF, the EU and World Bank to avert a default.

Crisis Management

Bajnai’s crisis-management government, which took office in April 2009 and will run the country until elections due this spring, has passed measures to tackle an aging workforce. Hungary will gradually raise the retirement age to 65, has lowered pensions, frozen state wages and reduced state child support to encourage mothers to return to work sooner. The government also cut income and payroll taxes.
Government debt probably reached 79.1 percent of gross domestic product at the end of last year, compared with 36.5 percent in the Czech Republic and 51.7 percent in Poland, according to estimates from the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm.
Flextronics, which employs 6,500 people in Hungary and has as many as 1,500 additional temporary workers, offered “competitive” salaries in Zalaegerszeg, where it assembles parts for technology and telecommunications clients, Hetenyi said.

‘Prefer to Benefit’

“It’s hard to find workers when people prefer to benefit from the welfare system instead of working on a factory line,” Hetenyi said in a phone interview.
The average net monthly salary for a worker at a computer manufacturing plant in Hungary is about 93,000 forint ($497), according to the statistics office. A parent of two without registered work can receive about two-thirds of that amount in state aid, according to figures on the Labor Ministry’s Web site. Many find additional income in the so-called gray economy.
Some Hungarians are blaming the Roma for bloating the country’s debt burden by staying on welfare. Jobbik, a radical nationalist party, came third in European parliament elections in July, a sign of growing ethnic tensions. The party gained 15 percent of the vote with a campaign focused on crime blamed on the Roma.
Employment “has become a much more complex and much more dangerous question,” Janos Veres, a former finance minister, said at a conference in Budapest last month. “If there is no change, we’re heading into a dead-end economically and as a society.”


--Editors: Balazs Penz, Tasneem Brogger.

But remember, the puritan work ethic is what's destroying America .
/Sarcasm.

[Teebs]

But remember, the puritan work ethic is what's destroying America .
/Sarcasm.

This could be because of being foreign, but I don't understand what you're getting at with this.

[Surlethe]

You'd have to be a total ignoramus to think that welfare doesn't raise unemployment because some people who could find work prefer not to. The real questions pertinent to the debate are as follows: first, what is the response in unemployment to changes in welfare doles; second, how does this response change to changing economic conditions; and third (crucial for policy-making), does the benefit to people from having a certain level of welfare (as opposed to lower levels or none at all) outweigh the cost to people indirectly through a high unemployment rate and slower growth rate? This depends on the two empirical questions preceding it.

[Zixinus]

Well shit. I am just glad that my parents can find work, but I wasn't aware of this. I really have to get used to watching the news more.

And yeah, I can imagine some people being comfortably on welfare. Most people are still a bit stuck in Soviet days of exploiting the corrupt government, or at least with the mindset that the government has a lot of money, so why won't they do x or y?

Jobbik, a radical nationalist party, came third in European parliament elections in July, a sign of growing ethnic tensions. The party gained 15 percent of the vote with a campaign focused on crime blamed on the Roma.

They are not radical: they are fascists, clear and simple. They are in contact with terrorist groups (that was banned) and are as mindless as they come.

[Soontir C'boath]

“It’s hard to find workers when people prefer to benefit from the welfare system instead of working on a factory line,” Hetenyi said in a phone interview.
The average net monthly salary for a worker at a computer manufacturing plant in Hungary is about 93,000 forint ($497), according to the statistics office. A parent of two without registered work can receive about two-thirds of that amount in state aid, according to figures on the Labor Ministry’s Web site. Many find additional income in the so-called gray economy.

The company needs to raise the salary or if this is the general salary given by private companies, the government should lower the dole to get people to work. If it was the choice of not working and getting 1/3 less than working full time and being away from family, then the former is no brainer.

I like the fact that the pertaining paragraph is at the end where people may have already lost interest in the article.

[Darth Wong]

Of the 1,400 people the local employment office sent to the Flextronics plant in the city of Zalaegerszeg, 225 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of Budapest, 249 showed up, said Mark Hetenyi, the Chief Financial Officer at the local unit of the company that supplies customers including Apple Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Several made deliberate mistakes in a competency test, preferring to stay on welfare[/b], he said.

"Several"? How many is "several"?

Employment in Hungary was kept high during the country’s four decades of communism, when being out of a job was considered a criminal offense. The transition to a market economy left many unskilled workers, including a large portion of the Gipsy minority known as Roma, without a job. Many unemployed people went into early retirement.

As a consequence, tax revenue dropped and welfare spending rose, forcing the government to finance the budget from loans. Borrowing became the “narcotic” that fueled the economy, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai wrote in a Dec. 28 article in Nepszabadsag newspaper.
Slower growth than in other parts of central Europe and swelling debt levels that kept the country from qualifying for the euro made Hungary more vulnerable to the global financial crisis as investors retreated from riskier markets.

Hungary’s bond market froze and the forint plunged in October 2008, forcing the government to obtain a loan from the IMF, the EU and World Bank to avert a default.

It's not exactly surprising that a country with a large unskilled workforce would have trouble in an open market.

Bajnai’s crisis-management government, which took office in April 2009 and will run the country until elections due this spring, has passed measures to tackle an aging workforce. Hungary will gradually raise the retirement age to 65, has lowered pensions, frozen state wages and reduced state child support to encourage mothers to return to work sooner. The government also cut income and payroll taxes.

If only we could get a government to lower pensions and freeze state wages in the US and Canada.

“It’s hard to find workers when people prefer to benefit from the welfare system instead of working on a factory line,” Hetenyi said in a phone interview.

The average net monthly salary for a worker at a computer manufacturing plant in Hungary is about 93,000 forint ($497), according to the statistics office. A parent of two without registered work can receive about two-thirds of that amount in state aid, according to figures on the Labor Ministry’s Web site. Many find additional income in the so-called gray economy.

I wonder what $500 per month buys in Hungary. Is this a matter of over-generous welfare, or shitty wages?

Some Hungarians are blaming the Roma for bloating the country’s debt burden by staying on welfare. Jobbik, a radical nationalist party, came third in European parliament elections in July, a sign of growing ethnic tensions. The party gained 15 percent of the vote with a campaign focused on crime blamed on the Roma.

Employment “has become a much more complex and much more dangerous question,” Janos Veres, a former finance minister, said at a conference in Budapest last month. “If there is no change, we’re heading into a dead-end economically and as a society.”

It's always dangerous when you have an ethnic group which is correlated with a certain lifstyle. Attacks on that lifestyle can easily become confused with attacks on the ethnicity, by both attackers and defenders.

But remember, the puritan work ethic is what's destroying America .
/Sarcasm.

What the fuck is this supposed to mean?

[folti78]

The link is broken, fixed one here.

As a local of Zala county (at least on paper), here's some background and anecdotal information.

While the Flextronics(Flex for short) plant is located in Zalaegerszeg, most of the workforce comes from villages in a ~30km radius.

Due to the hilly terrain, these villages are small and numerous which were only livable in the communist era because of the good and affordable bus network and jobs in the cities. Now both are gone and most of the villages sink into poverty, no job prospects with shrinking and aging population (except for the gypsies but their employment rate are horrible).

Finding work outside of your village could be harder because employers less likely to take people A) whose commuting costs they have to foot (by law) B) can't get to work in time in adverse weather. If the employer don't foots your commuting costs, it'll eat into your pay which will be considerable, if you are near minimal wage.

To mitigate the transport problem Flex operates it's own buses but they only stop in places where are at least 4-5 people to take.

The people Flex wanted to employ will be the lowest class, unskilled assembly line workers, whose wage will be near minimum wage 71500HuF IF they are employed in 8 hours/day. (competitive wage my ass)<anecdotal>But what I heard from people, many times it wasn't the case, even for white collar positions. Most people who have been started to work in the last few years are employed in 6 hours/day, which is part time so many employer paid allowances does not apply. Also there are rumours that they still force the people to work for unpaid overtime.</anecdotal>

Since Flex hires/fires people according to how it could get contracted work to itself, stable job prospects for the assembly line workers are not too bright. Two other points to consider:
- It's harder to fire people with a permanent contract so they are employed in a series of temporary contracts (3-4 months) or
- simply fired at the end of the probation period and new warm bodies brought in.
<anecdotal>The second option could be used if the rumours that Flex exploiting the employment stimulating laws (when you hire a longer time unemployed person, the state pays part of it's wage for a 3 months) are true.</anecdotal>
I don't have exact information about their current employment practices, I'll have to ask around in the next few days.

The average net monthly salary for a worker at a computer manufacturing plant in Hungary is about 93,000 forint ($497), according to the statistics office.

Aaand what wage are Flex offering to the assembly line drones? Oooh wait minimal wage. And it's not a computer manufacturing plant, but general electronics.

A parent of two without registered work can receive about two-thirds of that amount in state aid, according to figures on the Labor Ministry’s Web site. Many find additional income in the so-called gray economy.

That's sadly true.

Some Hungarians are blaming the Roma for bloating the country’s debt burden by staying on welfare.

And the same Hungarians blame "the jews" for selling out/ruining the economy/take over the country. Especially in rural areas. Meanwhile the country's debt were bloated by the semi insane politics of the Gyurcsány-Kóka government and the unregulated growth of private loans fueling overconsumption up to 2008.

Jobbik, a radical nationalist party, came third in European parliament elections in July, a sign of growing ethnic tensions. The party gained 15 percent of the vote with a campaign focused on crime blamed on the Roma.

Yep because ethnic tensions are raising in times of economic crises, and Hungary's economy started to sputter back in 2006 (just ignore what Gyurcsány said on the news).

Employment “has become a much more complex and much more dangerous question,” Janos Veres, a former finance minister, said at a conference in Budapest last month. “If there is no change, we’re heading into a dead-end economically and as a society.”

Sadly true

[folti78]

“It’s hard to find workers when people prefer to benefit from the welfare system instead of working on a factory line,” Hetenyi said in a phone interview.

The average net monthly salary for a worker at a computer manufacturing plant in Hungary is about 93,000 forint ($497), according to the statistics office. A parent of two without registered work can receive about two-thirds of that amount in state aid, according to figures on the Labor Ministry’s Web site. Many find additional income in the so-called gray economy.

I wonder what $500 per month buys in Hungary. Is this a matter of over-generous welfare, or shitty wages?

Depends where you live but it's just few notches above the minimal wage(71500HUF). You can get by with it around most places if you don't have dependents or health problems, but you don't have too much to put away, especially in the cities.
But it's not what Flex would be pay for the workers(see other post)

[folti78]

Jobbik, a radical nationalist party, came third in European parliament elections in July, a sign of growing ethnic tensions. The party gained 15 percent of the vote with a campaign focused on crime blamed on the Roma.

They are not radical: they are fascists, clear and simple.

And you base this on what? MSZP and SZDSZ propaganda? They have their nutcases, but they are not the Arrow Cross Party reincarnate. The only reason they are became as popular as they are, because both the government(MSZP, SZDSZ and MDF) and the opposition (FIDESZ) botched the economy and the last 5-7 year and people got fed up the Latin-American soap opera level of drama in Hungarian politics.

They are in contact with terrorist groups (that was banned)

When was the Magyar Gárda a terrorist group??? Neither their capabilities nor their aims were terrorists ones. Aren't you mix them with boutique terrorists of the 'Arrows of the Hungarians Natonal Liberation Army' who was terrorist until they have been arrested to the last man. All ~10 of them ...

and are as mindless as they come.

Like rabid followers of Saint Viktor the Most Righteous (FIDESZ) or the MSZP's base aren't.

[Zixinus]

I apologize for my ignorance. Like I said, I should watch the news more but above that, consider what I say in a more throughout manner.

[K. A. Pital]

"Hungary belongs to the Hungarians" is no different from the skinhead slogans painted here on the walls which cry out "Russia for Russians!" I don't know if nationalism is more acceptable here or there, but "Country X for nation X" is pretty much the sign of extreme nationalists everywhere. And if your party heads meet with BNP goons, well, that's pretty much another huge red flag indicating something very, very wrong.

I'm not sure if that classifies as "fascist", but radical nationalism is not a good thing anyhow.

[folti78]

"Hungary belongs to the Hungarians" is no different from the skinhead slogans painted here on the walls which cry out "Russia for Russians!" I don't know if nationalism is more acceptable here or there, but "Country X for nation X" is pretty much the sign of extreme nationalists everywhere. And if your party heads meet with BNP goons, well, that's pretty much another huge red flag indicating something very, very wrong.

I'm not sure if that classifies as "fascist", but radical nationalism is not a good thing anyhow.

Acceptance of far-right nationalism has been rising since the early '00-s, especially after the FIDESZ lost the 2002 elections*, after they started to sound more nationalist.
The really big boost to the far-right came in 2006 when the re-elected MSZP-SZDSZ government admitted that the country's economy was in worse shape than their election propaganda claimed, following the leaked speech of the then PM Gyurcsány that they lied through their teeth through the election campaign. Their perceived general economic policy since 2002 - raising pensions** and welfare while footing the bill with rampant privatization, levying more taxes on enterprises*** and getting into foreign debt- didn't help either. Economic slowdown since 2006, criminal activities of party officials and infighting in the governing coalition just added oil to the fire. Add to this the fact that the largest opposition party's (FIDESZ) official policy perceived as more and more butthurt whining, not that they could do anything else against the government majority in the parliament.

* There were some strange activities that might have been incited by the FIDESZ leadership or their sympathisers, like blocking the Elisabeth Bridge and demanding recount or repeat of the elections. That was the action that made the radical nutcase and later troublemaker György Budaházy known.
** this was shamelessly used by the MSZP-SZDSZ coalition in the 2006 elections along with slandering SMS campaign right before the elections.
*** Especially affected the small and medium sized businesses who were already hit hard by the slowing economy.

Uhh after the history lesson...
The Jobbik is a far right party no questions about it and personally I'm not happy that they could became anything larger than a loony fringe party like the MIÉP. Their popularity is the direct result of the last 8-10 years of government maladministration, corruption and political bitchfight between the major parties. They made this shitsandwitch and everyone have to eat it.
I'm not consider them fascists, they are too mellow for that, especially after they got seats in the EU parliament. That dubious honour goes to the real fascist organizations like "Pax Hungarica" and "Blood and Honour Hungarica" and their ilk. What got most people mixed up, that after ~2005 both the government and FIDESZ propaganda tried to paint everyone righter than FIDESZ as nazi or fascist without discrimination.

[folti78]

"Hungary belongs to the Hungarians" is no different from the skinhead slogans painted here on the walls which cry out "Russia for Russians!" I don't know if nationalism is more acceptable here or there, but "Country X for nation X" is pretty much the sign of extreme nationalists everywhere. And if your party heads meet with BNP goons, well, that's pretty much another huge red flag indicating something very, very wrong.

I'm not sure if that classifies as "fascist", but radical nationalism is not a good thing anyhow.

Acceptance of far-right nationalism has been rising since the early '00-s, especially after the FIDESZ lost the 2002 elections*, after they started to sound more nationalist.
The really big boost to the far-right came in 2006 when the re-elected MSZP-SZDSZ government admitted that the country's economy was in worse shape than their election propaganda claimed, following the leaked speech of the then PM Gyurcsány that they lied through their teeth through the election campaign. Their perceived general economic policy since 2002 - raising pensions** and welfare while footing the bill with rampant privatization, levying more taxes on enterprises*** and getting into foreign debt- didn't help either. Economic slowdown since 2006, criminal activities of party officials and infighting in the governing coalition just added oil to the fire. Add to this the fact that the largest opposition party's (FIDESZ) official policy perceived as more and more butthurt whining, not that they could do anything else against the government majority in the parliament.

* There were some strange activities that might have been incited by the FIDESZ leadership or their sympathisers, like blocking the Elisabeth Bridge and demanding recount or repeat of the elections. That was the action that made the radical nutcase and later troublemaker György Budaházy known.
** this was shamelessly used by the MSZP-SZDSZ coalition in the 2006 elections along with slandering SMS campaign right before the elections.
*** Especially affected the small and medium sized businesses who were already hit hard by the slowing economy.

Uhh after the history lesson...
The Jobbik is a radical far-right party, no questions about it and personally I'm not happy that they could became anything larger than a loony fringe party like the MIÉP. Their popularity is the direct result of the last 8-10 years of government maladministration, corruption and political bitchfight between the major parties. They made this shitsandwitch and everyone have to eat it.
I'm not consider them fascists, they are too mellow for that, especially after they got seats in the EU parliament. That dubious honour goes to the real fascist organizations like "Pax Hungarica" and "Blood and Honour Hungarica" and their ilk. What got most people mixed up, that after ~2005 both the government and FIDESZ propaganda tried to paint everyone righter than FIDESZ as nazi or fascist without discrimination.

[folti78]

Could some mod delete the above post?

Back to topic, I managed to talk someone who has been turned down the Flextronics job offer mentioned in OP. What they offered was minimum wage(71500 HUF) and a limited term-contract from 2010 January to April. The guy currently works at some local poultry farm but I don't know whether he's employed legally, but his longer term goals is to get some job in Austria or Germany.

Since Flex does this kind of employment since around 2005-2006* it looks like, anyone who could get a more stable employment illegally no longer considers them as a prospective employer.

* as an assembly-plant-for hire, Flextronics Hungarian have to compete with much cheaper Chinese competition. Since 2002 they are oscillated between working at 100% capacity to circling the drain.

[nil_von_9wo]

My response to Zoltan:

Dear Zoltan Simon,

Having spent 3 years living and working in Hungary, I will not disagree with the notion that Hungarians do not want to work. Even when they are being paid, at *best* they seem passive-aggressive in the performance of their functions.

However, I feel the slant of this article is unfair.

The fact is that employers and contractors do not want to pay!

In my day to day life, most people I meet either are seeking a job, seeking a second job, or already working two jobs: not to get ahead, but just to make ends meet!

Rather than suggesting Hungarians are lazy, it may be better to suggest that would-be employers and contractors must provide higher incentives so that Hungarians will:

1) Feel like they have something to gain by doing their job and doing it well.

2) Care if they keep or loose their job.

3) Be able to give up their second job so they are not too tired to perform their first job.

Of course, this is a completely impossible situation since local employers have no money to spend on their employees and foreign employers are here only for the cheap labour, which evidently isn't cheap enough or they might not have such problems hiring.


Moreover, given a personal choice: Would you rather

A.) Take a little less money for nothing and have more time to spend with your family, friends, in pursuit of your interests, or in pursuit of work that might actually pay, or

B.) Accept peanuts more than nothing to give this time to foreigner who cares nothing about you and who is only seeking to exploit the combination of this nation's economy and your personal desperation.


Finally, if you know anyone at Flextronic who is serious about hiring people in Hungary (from the look of the Flextronic website's career section, they can't be serious), please forward my CV to them.

You may also forward this to anyone else who may actual be serious about seeking workers.

(By serious, I do mean willing to actually pay!)

Regards,

-Brian.

[folti78]

Having spent 3 years living and working in Hungary, I will not disagree with the notion that Hungarians do not want to work. Even when they are being paid, at *best* they seem passive-aggressive in the performance of their functions.

At which part of the country and at which company do you work in Hungary? What kind of employees do you work with? Untrained assembly-line drones, blue collar skilled workers, office drones, R&D or creative people? How management treats the employees in general? What's the turnaround rate of employees?

If the management behaved like a colonial slave driver, don't get surprised if people started to hate the place even if they couldn't left the company, due to the lack of alternatives. Did your and the other foreigners' wage was on the level of the Hungarian wages or you paid by your country's wage? That can cause resentment due to petty envy (it's not in short supply) when people think that you earn as much a month as they earn in a year (or more).

The fact is that employers and contractors do not want to pay!

Welcome to the wild east free for all capitalism.

In my day to day life, most people I meet either are seeking a job, seeking a second job, or already working two jobs: not to get ahead, but just to make ends meet!

Rather than suggesting Hungarians are lazy, it may be better to suggest that would-be employers and contractors must provide higher incentives so that Hungarians will:

1) Feel like they have something to gain by doing their job and doing it well.

2) Care if they keep or loose their job.

3) Be able to give up their second job so they are not too tired to perform their first job.

Of course, this is a completely impossible situation since local employers have no money to spend on their employees and foreign employers are here only for the cheap labour, which evidently isn't cheap enough or they might not have such problems hiring.

There is a problem with high labour costs in the country which is well known, but hard to tackle without starving the state or cutting services and pensions which would upset large groups of voters.
However labour costs only the part of the Flextronics plant's problem because it reduces their competitiveness, which limits their ability to secure orders, resulting them being seen as an unreliable employer. Please read my other posts.

Funny part that can't remember employers complaining about laziness here before, lack of skilled workers, large scale theft by employees*, insufficient employee mobility yes.

Moreover, given a personal choice: Would you rather

A.) Take a little less money for nothing and have more time to spend with your family, friends, in pursuit of your interests, or in pursuit of work that might actually pay, or

B.) Accept peanuts more than nothing to give this time to foreigner who cares nothing about you and who is only seeking to exploit the combination of this nation's economy and your personal desperation.

It's not the choice for Flextronics' "lazy" would-be-employees for minimal wage and limited time. They can't afford it. It's whether they can find illegal but reliable job(s) which give them a reliable stream of income(with a side order of state welfare) or leave those jobs for limited time employment after which they will be back on the street with minimal progress and with someone else took their place at their illegal job.

Finally, if you know anyone at Flextronic who is serious about hiring people in Hungary (from the look of the Flextronic website's career section, they can't be serious), please forward my CV to them.

You may also forward this to anyone else who may actual be serious about seeking workers.

(By serious, I do mean willing to actually pay!)

What are you talking about?

* <anecdote>Back in 2001, when Flex assembled the Palm m505, there were an industrial level theft of Palm devices. Rumours pegged the number of stolen devices to ~25000, meanwhile ad sections were full of ads for "new Palm m505 without accessories for 20-40000 HUF". The store price was ~120000 HUF. Similar happened in IBM's hard-drive manufacturing plant at Székesfehérvár until they switched production from IDE to SCSI drives.</anecdote>

[LaCroix]

I have built a stable in Hungary and employ one guy for doing part time work over there (2-4 hours a day, depending on available work). I pay him 1000 HUF per hour straight on a contract base - I don't know if he actually reports this.

Basically, I pay him that much because he is a hard working guy who doesn't steal. Even more, his presence has prevented theft already, because I have hired a local for the work. He works full time as qualified worker in a window assembler, and is paid about 70.000 per month. With me, he earns 50 to 60.000 per month extra for not even half the work. So he is very interested in keeping my stuff safe and keep the job.

I calm my colonial mind by seeing it as a symbiotic relationship.

[adam_grif]

Coming here I keep seeing crap like this about the recession every five minutes. Is it just not that bad in Australia or am I and all the people I know just unusually fortunate?

[D.Turtle]

Due to massive Stimulus through the First Home Buyers Loan thing, the Australian government managed to restart the debt bubble in Australia before everyone else. This has resulted in Australia being relatively untouched by the world-wide recession.

However, your crash will be even worse because of it.

[bobalot]

Australia is lucky because of a few things.

1. Relatively little government debt
A fairly large stimulus package was able to be carried out without worrying too much about long term debt (Once the world recession ends, the budget should swing into surplus). In the package there is a bit of pork barrel bullshit (extended first home buyers, Baby bonus, etc.), some cutbacks in middle class welfare (finally having some form of means testing), a fair bit of infrastructure spending and direct cash handouts.

All of this helped to soften the impact of the recession.

2. China
China carried out its own enormous stimulus package and their economy is still ticking along. They are spending a lot of money building huge amounts of infrastructure in the regional provinces and they need a shitload of Australian resources to do it.

This is primary reason why Australia seems to have weathered the worst of it.