Employment data for Q2 does not look particularly scary

HUNGARY - In Brief 02 Aug 2020 by Istvan Racz

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Employment data by ILO methodology for Q2 has been reported in recent days, as one of the first datasets with information on what happened in June. This report is also important because the whole of the April-June period was affected by the Covid-19 crisis, and indeed it can be legitimately regarded as the worst point of the virus-related economic setback. Previous indications from the government suggest that economic activity has been improving since late April and registered unemployment has decreased from around June 10.So the Statistical Office said that in Q2, employment was 2.8% or by 122k people down from Q4 2019, as a quarterly average. The unemployment rate went up to 4.7% from 3.4%, as the unemployed crowd expanded by 60k people over the same period, but of course the economically active population simultaneously fell by 1.4% or 62k people, saving statisticians from the duty to report a jump by the unemployment rate to slightly above 6%.Making various adjustments, the total Covid-driven job loss can be presented equally as less or more. On the one hand, the net loss of temporary employment of the domestic labor force abroad and the reduction of social employment can be legitimately subtracted, for in part not reflecting domestic activities and in part not representing genuine employment with regular productivity levels. This adjustment would take away some 49k people, leaving the total job loss at 1.7% from Q4.On the other hand, contractual workers (rather than employees), and mainly foreign guest workers and domestic 'quasi-entrepreneurs' (formally entrepreneurs but in fact much more like employees) who have been laid off should be added. This may be a crowd...