The situation of the employed in agriculture

Abstract

Efficiency improvements result in reduced employment. Regarding the actual individual consumption per capital and the GDP per capita in the EU member states- Hungary is among the lasts. The main reason for this is the weak international competitive role. Competitiveness is one of the prerequisites for efficiency which requires skilled workforce. However, the unemployed from rural regions are generally low-skilled so their employment is not a viable option in the competitive industry or in the agricultural market.

In Hungary, the educational attainment level of agricultural workers is significantly lower than the employment of any other section’s or the EU average. Agriculture cannot solve the employment problems of the rural population, it may only contributes modestly to the creation of new workplaces. GDP or gross domestic product is the sum of depreciation, wages and capital income. One of the main reasons of the low GDP per capita is the fact that the wages in Hungary are just a mere fraction of a Western European employee’s with the same performance. The share of agriculture has been steadily decreasing in employment and in the production of gross value added, where the average wage of agriculture is significantly lower than the average of the national economy. It also plays a role in lowering the contribution of agriculture to GDP than the proportion of active workers. This explains the higher of a worker’s level of education is, the chances they stay in the agriculture permanently is reducing significantly. The social recognition of agricultural activity can only be improved if the agricultural earnings or income of qualified young people reaches the average of the national economy.