In Romania, the large number of parents who work abroad and leave their children at home have created a social problem, not just a problem for the labour market.

The scale of Poles working abroad is also larger than in Hungary, while more Czechs tend to commute across their border because of the country’s geographical position, she said. Szalai put the number of Hungarians working abroad at around 300,000, including 72,000 who commute across the border to work in neighbouring countries.

She attributed the discrepancy between that number and the number in the official statistics -- under 110,000 in 2017, according to the Central Statistical Office (KSH) -- to methodology.

The KSH statistics count only those workers who happen to be home when the survey for the data is conducted, and these workers are mostly commuters or Hungarians who work abroad one or two weeks a month, she explained.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.