Employment
For more than 15 years, the paid workforce in the Hungarian non profit sector has been steadily growing, but still remains remarkably small considering the size of the sector. In 2009, there were only 65,416 people working full time, which is equal to about 3.4% of the country’s total workforce (2,661,000). (1).
In recent years, the dynamic employment growth that once characterized the sector seems to be slowing – between 2008 and 2009, it grew by only 4.1% (1)
With respect to the size of the sector – over 60,000 organizations – employment is extremely low. This is has been attributed to the very low income of the majority of non profit organizations and the very high payroll taxes in place in Hungary. In fact, in 2006 only 15% of non profit organizations could afford to employ paid staff (9). The average monthly wage in the sector is about 81% the national average (14), whereas the maximum monthly salary of a Chief Executive in the third sector is almost equivalent to that of one in the for profit sector (5).
Volunteers
Organizations rely heavily on volunteers, which have recently been decreasing in number. In 2008, 472,000 people worked as volunteers for a total of 50 million working hours or the equivalent of 24,600 full-time employees (14). When taking into account both registered and non-registered organizations, the number of volunteers in 2008, reaches 901,545, equal to 10.8% of the country’s total volunteers (6). The value of voluntary work has been estimated at over 350 million Euros (9).
Despite the important role played by volunteers particularly in associations and foundations, the percentage of Hungarians who volunteer remains less than half of the EU average of 33% according to USAID statistics (8). On top of this, thanks to the global recession people are becoming less and less willing to support non profit organizations through donations. In the early ‘90s financial support from citizens reached 20% of total non profit revenues, whereas by 2007 their contributions amounted to only 13% (3). As private philanthropy is waning, state funding for the non profit sector continues to increase, underscoring yet again the disproportionate reliance of civil society on government funding.
Currently an interesting study is underway examining the motivation of Hungarian volunteers and creating a Hungarian Volunteer Motivation Index. The research is headed by Anna Mária Bartal, Zoltán Kmetty and Dániel Rémai.
