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In the place where, 10 years ago, Pope John Paul II held a mass before several hundred thousand believers on the outskirts of Gyor, there now stands an industrial estate composed of 74 smaller or larger companies employing 6,000 people. Szilvia Rimanyine Somogyi, deputy director of the Western Transdanubia Regional Labour Centre, says: "Investments like these have raised employment in western Hungary to the highest levels in the country. Growth in the labour market here could, in principle, create jobs for many of those who are unemployed in the eastern parts of the country. But there is little sign of mass migration westwards. "The people working in the factories, assembly plants and logistics centres of north west Hungary are coming not from Szabolcs or Borsod, nor even from Vas or Zala, but mainly from the Veszprem and Komarom regions and from Slovakia."

The absence of detailed statistics on internal migration mean estimates can only be made on the basis of population figures. The population of northern Hungary and the eastern Great Plain fell by 6,619 in 2005, while central Hungary's population grew by 7,272, western Transdanubia's by 1,405. Migration figures are not growing. A survey conducted by the Central Statistical Office between 2002 and 2005 showed that one third of people of working age were prepared to take work far from their place of residence. Research published recently by IBM Hungary and GKIeNET shows that only a quarter of employees would now be prepared to move elsewhere to find a better job, or any employment at all. Preparedness to relocate falls with rising age. Just over half of those aged between 18 and 29 would relocate for a new job, but only a third of people in their 30s would do so. This falls to a fifth for those in their 40s, whereas only one in six of people in their 50s would consider relocating. Higher pay and unemployment were the major drivers, but 60 per cent of those prepared to relocate mentioned "better professional opportunities" as a factor.

People considering a move are not in an easy position. In Hungary, nine tenths of the population live in a property they own, which makes relocation harder. Furthermore, property prices are lower overall in eastern Hungary than in the west of the country. In a small community in Szabolcs, a 120 square metre family house can be bought for Ft6m, half the price of an equivalent property in a village near Gyor. Property prices in the country's major cities vary less. According to the estate agents Otthon Centrum, the price per square metre of an old brick house in Nyiregyhaza starts at Ft160,000, in Pecs at Ft170,000 and in Gyor at Ft180,000. Prices for council flats in all three cities stand at between Ft140,000 and Ft180,000.

Companies are unwilling to compensate workers for relocations. At the beginning of the 1990s, it was the people living in distant regions that they got rid of first. Few workers' hostels remain. One of the few is the one rented by the Suzuki factory in Esztergom, which has offered accommodation to 300 employees since it was built in 2005. For a "hard core" of 25 or 30 people, it is their permanent home, according to Ildiko Nagy, who runs the hostel. This cheap building bears little resemblance to the workers' hostels of our memory. Residents have to swap their street shoes for slippers at the entrance. The two- to three-bed rooms and apartments are clean and tidy, and life there is quiet despite the fact that staff have no say in who gets to live there. Karoly Bagosi, a carosserie painter, found himself a job there with the help of the labour office in Korosszegapati in Hajdu-Bihar county. "I had no chance of finding a job in my village. I was on the point of becoming a soldier," says the 29-year-old, whose partner Annamaria Mehes also found work at the car factory. Gyorgy Izsak, Suzuki's HR manager, adds that they hope to find the 600 to 800 new employees they plan to take on in 2007 within a 30 or 40km radius. The company denies that this is just about saving money, but it is clear, that while workers who arrive from afar are not paid any less, building a new hostel would be expensive.


"According to the academic literature, skilled labour migrates, while unskilled labour tries to find work on the spot, because further afield nobody pays enough to compensate for the expense of relocation," according to Maria Redei, a lecturer at ELTE University in Budapest. But 84 per cent of respondents to the IBM-GKIeNET survey said they would not attend a school or a class to make it easier to find a job. This is the case even though researchers found a village in north east Hungary where unemployment runs at 100 per cent, while the local agricultural company is forced to employ foreigners.

There is still a shortage of skilled mechanical and construction workers in western Transdanubia, which cannot be filled even by workers from other regions. The school system is not training workers to meet the demands of the labour market, and the prestige of technical secondary schools has fallen, according to Rimanyine. Yet, as we were told by experts at the employment agency Manpower, while an administrator with a high school diploma is unlikely to earn more than Ft100,000, a trained turner can earn between Ft200,000 and Ft400,000.

A trained production line worker can earn some Ft80-90,000 at a multinational company, or 20-25 per cent more than the minimum wage. "Young people are prepared to move for this kind of sum, but it is not worthwhile for somebody aged over 35 with a family, especially if he or she earns more from unofficial jobs," says Renata Toreky, head of the Manpower agency in Budapest. "One of our clients tried to recruit people in Szabolcs for more than the minimum wage, offering them accommodation as well, but it didn't work out," according to Zsuzsa Gardus, managing director of Adecco.

It works occasionally. Flextronics Hungary recruits in five locations around Hungary, taking on seasonal workers from temporary agencies. This means, they say, that they can react to changing market conditions without mass redundancies. "Recently, we put some 300 workers from Nyiregyhaza in rented accommodation, paid them a relocation allowance of some Ft5-10,000 a month and offered them a free journey home each month," according to Peter Papp, the company's HR director. He added that there are rare cases of people migrating from west to east. Some 90 per cent of those who relocate are skilled workers, and they tend to be young. People who are not prepared to move are in a less appealing position. The company, which took on 1,100 new workers in Zalaegerszeg last year, has announced that it is to let go some 600 workers on its Nyiregyhaza site.

GÁBOR KIRICSI