The following dataset formed the starting point of our research series, which began in 2002
Excerpt from the conceptual framework of the longitudinal research
We conducted a survey among Hungary’s TOP 500 companies on the employment-related aspects of the global economic crisis, with particular attention to the crisis’s effects on the employment of workers with altered work capacity. The questionnaire, completed by the HR managers of a total of 115 companies, focused primarily on the current employment situation and on future prospects. In the first half of the report we summarise the current employment situation in the EU and in Hungary, with a separate section on the employment of workers with altered work capacity. The second half of the study presents the results of the questionnaire survey.
Current employment situation in the European Union and in Hungary
The global economic crisis that unfolded in the wake of the international financial crisis left a strong mark on the economic growth of the European Union, and of Hungary within it. According to the most recent report by Eurostat, the European Community’s Statistical Office, in the first quarter of 2009 the eurozone’s GDP fell by 2.5%, and the gross domestic product of the 27-member Union likewise fell by 2.5%, compared to the previous quarter, and decreased by 4.8% and 4.5% respectively compared to the first three months of 2008.
According to a joint rapid estimate by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) and Ecostat, Hungary’s GDP, adjusted for calendar effects, fell by 2.3% compared to the previous quarter, and by 5.8% compared to the same period in 2008.[1] As a result, the gradually slowing economic growth of the previous year was followed, in the last quarter of 2008, by a sharp downturn in most EU member states, including Hungary, which worsened further in the first three months of 2009. The crisis did not affect companies’ business conditions uniformly across sectors: according to various business-climate surveys, the global economic crisis has hit construction, manufacturing, and trade companies hardest (ECOSTAT 2008, GVI 2008). The surveys also showed that the crisis’s negative effects were strongest among large, export-oriented companies (ECOSTAT 2008, GVI 2008), and that, in terms of ownership structure, foreign-owned companies experienced the greatest deterioration in business conditions (GVI 2008).
The production of gross domestic product (GDP) is affected by seasonal factors — weather (temperature), summer holidays, public holidays, etc. — and by calendar effects — the number of working days, leap years, the timing of Easter, etc. Filtering out these effects makes it possible to outline the real trends in GDP and to compare GDP data with one another.