Hungary is among the most favoured sites for multinationals setting up regional service centres, business daily Vilaggazdasag said on Monday, quoting a PriceWaterhouseCoopers report.
While investors in production capacity are generally sitting on their hands in the midst of the global crisis, the crisis has actually spurred the “business” of setting up regional servicing centres due to the potential cost-savings, Tamas Locsi, a partner of the professional services firm told the paper.
According to one survey, Budapest is Europe’s second most popular destination for regional service centres after Brno, said the paper.
Besides the cost-savings, businesses have a good impression of the quality of the workforce and the country’s infrastructure, said the paper.
“Besides the cost-savings”
It’s such a great shame that the cost savings come because the work force are so poorly paid. And it is utter rubbish that the cost of living is cheaper here on the whole. People are just forced to live on less money.
No, it’s not a great shame – it’s just business. If Hungarians were more productive workers, they’d make more money. Period.
Erik,
Do you remember when Japanese business leaders had to apologize for calling US workers “lazy and stupid”? It was true, but you’re not supposed to say it loud. Even those lazy and stupid workers were paid about ten times as much as Hungarian lazy and stupid workers make these days.
Of course we inherited the “work ethics” of the Kadar era, when everyone had a job but nobody was working, the “little money – little work” system.
50 years of faking it doesn’t go away overnight. Hungarians are only willing to kill themselves in their second and third jobs. This country has been running on invisible economy for too long.
@Stan: well, the key thing for people to understand is that there is nothing at all wrong with a society deciding to work less or have a big social safety net that “softens the edges” but that doing so will translate into smaller relative paychecks, pensions, etc. The problem is when societies like Hungary are led to believe there aren’t any trade-offs involved.
This kountry is kaputt.
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