The average hourly wage for manual workers increased by 8.1 percent in one year

“The average hourly wage for blue-collar workers has been practically at the same level for half a year now, which shows that fewer employers have implemented mid-year wage increases this year compared to previous years. At the same time, the annual wage growth rate is still above 8 percent, which in the current inflationary environment means a real wage increase of 3-4 percent in this employment category

– said Viktor Hamrák, service director at Trenkwalder.

Although a significant portion of employees accustomed to previous double-digit wage increases would expect a more intense increase than the current one “…, this only seems realistically possible later. The net wages of some groups may nevertheless grow above average due to favorable tax changes: the family tax allowance has increased from July, and from the fourth quarter, the personal income tax exemption for mothers with three and then gradually next year for two children will also adjust the amount of salaries upwards.”

Statistics broken down by geographical area show that there is no part of the country where the average hourly wage for manual workers is significantly below the 2,000 forint level. There are currently three regions where this value ranges between 1,950 and 2,000 forints: Northern Hungary, Northern Great Plain, and Southern Transdanubia. In the other regions, this value typically ranges between 2,200 and 2,300 forints. The exception is Central Hungary, which includes Budapest, which stands out from the domestic field more than ever: the average hourly wage here is now approaching the 3,100 forint level.

Moore Hungary also examined the salary data of nearly 500 middle managers working at the domestic subsidiaries of more than 60 international companies. For employees working in the monthly gross salary range between 800 thousand and 1.2 million forints, the salary increase in the third quarter of 2025 was an average of 6.9 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

“The wage increase experienced among intellectual middle managers is below average, in this segment we were able to demonstrate a wage increase of under 7 percent. Although this also increased the purchasing power of wages by a few percent, the question is how well companies will be able to retain their workforce in the long term with moderate wage increases

– explained Péter Hajnal, managing partner of Moore Hungary. – However, we are not experiencing any significant fluctuation in this area for now, the exit rate remained below 3 percent in the last quarter. The reason for the wait is that in the current market environment it is also more difficult to change jobs in the middle management segment.

In the case of middle managers of business service centers (BSCs), which already employ more than 60 thousand people nationwide, the average wage increase is 7.6 percent wasover the past 12 months, according to Moore Hungary data. Here too, turnover fell: the size of the exit turnover was only 1.7 percent.