Business
May 28, 2021
Tourism in Poland in March fell 26 percent year on year, with a 67.8 percent drop in foreign tourist traffic and a 16.8 percent fall in domestic tourism, the Central Statistical office (GUS) reported on Friday.
GUS said tourists made 1.7 million overnight bookings in March 2021, down 31.9 percent year on year.
Poland’s tourism sector has been battered by the Covid crisis, with little incoming traffic from abroad and hotels and guesthouse being forced to close.
A total of 1.5 million overnight accommodations were booked by domestic tourists while 200,000 were made by foreigners, down 24.4 and 62.9 percent, respectively, year on year.
Half of Hungarians Ready to Retrain, survey says
Nearly half of Hungarians are ready to retrain to find jobs in fields widely different from their expertise, according to an international survey conducted by the Boston Consulting Group, The Network, and profession.hu.
Fully 49 percent of Hungarians said they would be ready to retrain and another 47 percent said they would do it to retain their jobs. Over half of Hungarians working in retail, health care, telecommunications, and finance said they were open to training in another field.
According to the survey conducted between October and December last year, 36 percent of employees worldwide have suffered layoffs or reduced working hours due to the coronavirus pandemic. In Hungary, that figure was 32 percent, on par with Finland and Serbia, the statement said.
President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen initiated a proposal regarding the increase of minimum wages across Member States of the EU.
Hungary's ruling party has proposed legislation that would force municipalities to let tenants buy tens of thousands of municipally owned rented apartments at deeply discounted prices, a move that NGOs and mayors say could deepen a housing crisis.
IT Minister: Minimum Wage Regulations Should Remain Member State Competency
Hungary accepts the European Union’s guidelines on the minimum wage but maintains that the issue should be regulated by the member states, László Palkovics, the innovation and technology minister, said after talks with Ana Mendes Godinho, the Portuguese labour and social affairs minister, in Porto on Friday.
At the talks ahead of the EU’s summit on social affairs, the ministers exchanged experiences on the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on the labour market, and discussed the concept of a European minimum wage, Palkovics told Hungarian public media.
Palkovics said Hungary saw the protection of workers as its top priority. Regulation of the minimum wage should be left to the member states, as they are best equipped to address the issue “in a sensible manner”, he said. The Hungarian minimum wage has grown by 128 percent between 2010 and 2021, a result that “couldn’t have been achieved by any o