Unemployment trends in the European Union Member States, March 2026

Released: 5 May 2026

In March 2026 (based on seasonally adjusted data) , the unemployment rate in the European Union was 6.0%, unchanged from both the previous month and from March 2025. Unemployment was lowest in Czechia (3.1%) and Bulgaria (3.2%), while it was highest in Finland (10.4%) and Spain (10.3%).

In March 2026, the unemployment rate¹ in Hungary stood at 4.4%, which was 0.2 percentage points lower than a month earlier, yet 0.2 percentage points higher than a year before. Within the EU, the Hungarian unemployment rate was the tenth lowest. Among the V4 countries, unemployment was higher than in Hungary in Slovakia (5.6%), and lower in Czechia and Poland (3.1% and 3.3%, respectively).

The number of unemployed people in Hungary – based on seasonally adjusted data – was 214 thousand in March 2026. In the period January to March 2026, the average duration of job search decreased from 13.1 months to 12.2 months compared with a year earlier, while the share of the long‑term unemployed (at least one year) fell from 37% to 36%.

According to the administrative data of the National Employment Service, by the end of March 2026 the number of registered jobseekers decreased by 1.3% compared with the previous month and by 4.1% to 223 thousand compared with a year earlier.

The March 2026 forecast of the National Bank of Hungary puts the unemployment rate at 4.6% in 2026 and 4.3% in 2027. According to OECD calculations, a slow decline can be expected, with the rate projected at 4.2% for 2026 as a whole and 4.0% for 2027. Trading Economics forecasts² that the domestic unemployment rate will fall to 4.0% by the third quarter of 2026, while the IMF projects a rate of 4.2% for 2026 and 4.0% for 2027.