The research is focused on the 1992-2002 decade for the analysis of employment structure in the Hajdu-Bihar County. It gives a good overview of the employment and unemployment levels in the county, focusing on the settlement structure of the area and also giving some structural factors which may indicate future difficulties, such as educational attainment and number of functioning enterprises.

The research starts from the assumption that market competitiveness depends on the quality of labour force and on employment relations. Therefore the structure of the labour market is crucial for the overall performance of the regional economy.
Full employment was the famous communist achievement, which collapsed by the 1980s due to economic regression and thus decreasing need for labour. The 1990 changes brought the structural problems of the economy to the surface with a massive explosion. The suffer from the loss of exports; the transition toward market orientation approaches has tormented many of the socialist mammoth companies. Restructuring hit hardest the regions, such as the county Hajdu-Bihar where economy was weakest and the labour force could find work only further away. Also the geopolitical position of having a long border on the Eastern end of the country did not help the viability of the economy. The decrease in the rate of employment in the county between 1990 and 2001 was 24 %, while nationally it was 17%.

The research has an analytical approach and based on the 1990 and 2001 Census data for a secondary analysis. It has a cross-sectoral approach to analyse changes in the labour market structures. It also uses some administrative data from the National Employment Agency.

None, the research was financed from the National Academic Research Fund

During 3 years starting from 1989 nearly one third of the existing work places had ceased to exist, and due to this nearly 1 million people has lost his/her workplace. The unemployment shock felt hardest in the Eastern Regions of the country. Both employment and unemployment data shows clearly the regional distribution of disadvantages. Naturally the bad employment structure of the Hajdu-Bihar County is the outcome of many external and internal factors. There is a lack of available workplaces as the Employment Agency data shows and also the number of functioning enterprises indicates the lack of possibilities in the region. The cross sectional analysis shows that there has been very little changes in the decade studied. For future trends, the educational attainment in the region – indicated by the number of people who could not finish the first year of mandatory education within one year – shows that training and retraining efforts will consume more resources in this region, since the employability of the people are going to be low on the long run too.

Hungarian Academy of Science Regional Research Centre, Debrecen
Hungary
http://www.mta.hu
Mr Gabor Koncz (researcher), tel. +36 52 508 327

Hungarian Academy of Science Regional Research Centre, Debrecen
Hungary
http://www.mta.hu
Mr Istvan Balcsok (researcher), tel. +36 52 508 327

01/01/2003

Mr Gabor Koncz, Mr Istvan Balcsok

research

Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment > Urban economy

Employment