Hungary does 180 on migrants amid severe labour shortage

Not completely a 180 given that it is a guest worker rather than immigration approach.

The experience with “guest workers” elsewhere in Europe, particularly Germany, indicates they tend not to return and thus governments are faced with longer-term integration challenges:

Faced with a severe labour shortage, the government is considering plans to invite non-EU “guest workers” to live in the country. “Guest workers” are usually allowed to stay and work in a country for a certain number of years but do not hold citizen rights.

Economics minister Mihaly Varga has supported demands voiced by the country’s Confederation of Employers and Industrialists to allow “hundreds of thousands of migrants from countries outside of the EU” into Hungary, according to Austrian newspaper Die Presse. Estimates predict that the nation will need tens of thousands of migrants to make up for its labour shortage and to prevent negative economic repercussions. However, the draft proposal specifies that the country wants “skilled, culturally integrable guest workers”— most likely implying that Muslims are not welcome.

“Many young Hungarians simply do not see a future for themselves in Hungary,” said Case. “The government has not managed to make staying attractive, in spite of all their nativist ‘Hungary for the Hungarians’ rhetoric.”

Moreover, birth rates in the country have been low for decades. Consequently, like in much of eastern Europe, the nation’s population is declining — and the share of older and retired people among the total population is increasing.

Other European countries, like Germany, face a similar problem which is why German Chancellor Angela Merkel often referred to the possibility that young refugees could ultimately make up for a lack of skilled workers in the country and prevent the collapse of its pension system. Whether or not Germany will become a role model in that regard is still uncertain, though. Since last year, only 30,000 refugees have found jobs — out of more than 1 million arrivals.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has chosen a different course: He supported programs aimed at attracting non-Muslim skilled workers to the country, while at the same time condemning the influx of refugees and provoking strong rebukes from other EU leaders for comments that some considered xenophobic.

“We shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture. Most are not Christian, but Muslim … That is an important question, because Europe and European culture have Christian roots,” Orban wrote in an op-ed published last September.

Calling Orban’s behaviour an example of “borderline political communication,” Gabor Bernath, a researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, said that the prime minister’s actions were also highly contradictory. “Just one year ago, Orban said [in front of] Arab investors: In Hungary, ‘the culture of respect’ still dominates.”