1980 HUNGARIAN CENSUS OF POPULATION Summary data (1984)

V. THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMPLOYMENT, CHANGE IN THE COMPOSITION OF ACTIVE EARNERS

There is considerable difference in the extent of utilization of certain qualifications between the two sexes: in general it is characteristic for the men that they incline more to stay in their original trained occupation than the women. In 1980 only in one fourth of the covered qualifications was the proportion of "utilized" higher among women than among men. Generally these are such qualifications which were feminized to a certain extent, like: textile industrial qualifications, tailor, cosmetician, hairdresser, cook, photographer, etc. In the case of women the utilization of qualification was higher in such occupations which do not require hard physical efforts rather hand skills are needed (for example: dental technician, mechanical technician etc.

). Since 1960 there was a favourable change in the composition of qualified manuals by staff groups: twenty years ago almost one third of them were classified as semi- or unskilled, but in 1980 only 16 percent of them were classified semi- or unskilled, so the proportion of skilled workers rose from 69 percent to 84 percent in the course of this period. The number of classified unskilled workers was considerable among the qualified manuals in 1980 (54 thousand), which means that a large group of workers did not utilize their qualifications because of their classification. The growing demand for unskilled subsidiary labour - among others - played a role in this. Another factor is the territorial divergence between the demand and supply of qualified labour. A favourable change can be observed if we look at the qualification level of the workers from the point of view of staff groups. In 1960 16 percent of the classified skilled workers had not any qualification, the proportion of these was 5 percent in 1980. Besides, there was a slight decrease! in the proportion of qualified among the lower classified workers, but in 1980 there were still 14 qualified workers among 100 semi-skilled workers and still 11 qualified workers among 100 unskilled workers. The composition of manual active earners by qualification and staff groups 1980 (percentage) Staff group a) All manuals Qualified Unqualified The distribution of the qualified by staff groups Skilled workers 100. 0 95. 0 5.0 84. 0 Semi-skilled 100. 0 14.4 85. 6 12. 6 Unskilled 100. 0 10. 6 89.4 3.4 Total 100. 0 48. 1 51. 9 100. 0 a) Without selfemployed and their helping family members. The staff group composition of the qualified manual men is more favourable than of the women: in 1980 86 percent of the former and 74 percent of the later were classified as skilled worker, at the same time 22 percent of the qualified women were classified as semi-skilled worker while only 11 percent of the men, the remaining 4 and 3 percents were classified as unskilled workers. Among the manual qualifications the decisive part is productive and only small part is service, so the majority of the qualified manual active earners are bound to the production process which determines their branch distribution. In correspondence with this, in 1980 88 percent of the qualified manual active earners were employed in the material branches, and only a relatively small proportion of them (12 percent) were employed in the so-called nonmaterial, service branches. The alteration of the economic structure in the frame of the intensive development of the national economy, demand more such qualified workers who are suitable for manifold activities. So those workers who have more qualifications can adapt themselves easier to the new conditions. In 1980 12 percent (243 thousand) of all qualified active earners had two manual qualifications, contrary to the 75 thousand twenty years earlier, so their number grew more than threefold during the past two decades. In 1980 the number of those whose first qualification was transportational was extraordinarily high (115 thousand) among those with two manual qualifications: they represented 47 percent of those with two qualifications. 89 thousand had manufactural first qualification, 24 thousand had construction first qualification, which together constitutes another 46 percent of those with two qualifications, so the 7 percent rest were those who had agricultural, trade, catering industrial and service first qualifications. 107