70% Of Women of Working Age Have Jobs, but They Still Make 17% Less Than Men

Last year, an average of 2 million 156 thousand women of working age were in employment, bringing the employment rate for women aged 15-64 to 70%. The average gross wage for women in full-time employment was nearly HUF 468,000, more than 17 percent below the HUF 566,000 for men, according to Trenkwalder's analysis.

The labor market activity of women with young children has also increased significantly

Partially as a result of employment policies implemented over the past decade, the number of working-age women has increased dramatically over the past decade, with 2,156,00 women aged 15–64 employed in 2022, an increase of 261,000 from 2012. Consequently, the percentage of working-age women who are employed increased from 55.7 to 69.9 percent. The second half of the year saw the most action, with the employment rate peaking at over 70%. According to the same announcement, the male equivalent was 78.8 percent that same year.

Efforts to ease the transition into the workforce for mothers of young children have also made a big difference:

between 2012 and 2022, the employment rate for women with children under 3 years of age increased by 9 percentage points to 78%.

Last year, full-time working

women earned an average of HUF 467 900 per month, or 17.3 percent less than their male counterparts' average of HUF 565 700.

"The gender pay gap, which had been around 16 percent in previous years, has widened slightly," pointed out József Nógrádi, Commercial Director at Trenkwalder. 

"The gap is partly due to the over-representation of women in lower paid jobs such as care, sales and education. In addition, women are more likely to give up their careers, at least temporarily, because of caring or family responsibilities. In addition, negative discrimination may unfortunately persist in some areas, where women are paid demonstrably lower wages than their male colleagues in the same pay bracket."

More women are looking for jobs, for more positions

In the past year, more women have actively sought employment. About 46% of the employed job seekers in Trenkwalder's database are women. Since women are more likely to remain at home even when both partners are working remotely, it makes sense that men make up a larger percentage of the accommodation workforce (70 percent versus 30 percent).

There is no significant difference in the chances of finding a job quickly between the two sexes: currently, both men and women can find a job in 25-26 days on average. The chances of finding a job increase as women candidates apply for more positions than before:

while the number of applications per female candidate was 1.8 in 2021, this figure doubled to 3.7 in 2022. 

"The epidemic has had a profound effect on the labor market, making home offices and other nontraditional forms of employment much more common in some fields. Because of their widespread adoption, new segments of the female population have entered the workforce; for example, many stay-at-home moms and caregivers have found success in the home office. Because of them, the gender gap in employment rates has shrunk significantly since the year 2020. More and more Hungarian women are holding senior international management positions as a direct result of our country's growing involvement in the global labor market. However, the gender gap between men and women persists," József Nógrádi added.

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