Economy 31 July 2017, 1:01pm

Shocking figures: over half of Hungarians can't afford 1-week holiday

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One third of people in the European Union cannot afford themselves to go on a one-week annual holiday away from home, the latest set of data by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, showed on Monday. More than half of Hungarians are in no position to go on a week-long holiday.

For many people in the European Union (EU), summer means holidays and travel. However, around a third (32.9%) of the EU population cannot afford a one-week annual holiday away from home, Eurostat reported.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, slightly more households with dependent children (34.6%) than those without (31.3%) find themselves in this situation.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that Sweden (8.2%), ahead of Luxembourg (13.1% in 2015), Denmark (13.7%), Finland (14.2%), Austria (15.4%) and the Netherlands (16.2%) were the EU Member States with the lowest percentage of people unable to afford such a one-week holiday.

At the opposite end of the scale, more than 6 in 10 people could not afford a one-week annual holiday away from home in Romania (66.6%) and Croatia (62.8%).

And so was Hungary, where over half of the population (50.7%) cannot afford themselves a one-week holiday away from home. Bulgaria (56.4%), Greece (53.6%) and Cyprus (53.5% in 2015) were also in this position.

The good news is that over the last five years, the proportion unable to afford a one-week annual holiday away from home decreased in all Member States, except Cyprus (from 47.6% in 2011 to 53.5% in 2015), Denmark (from 10.5% in 2011 to 13.7% in 2016) and Greece (from 51.2% in 2011 to 53.6% in 2016).

The most notable decrease was registered in Latvia (from 63.4% in 2011 to 37.1% in 2016, or -26.3 percentage points - pp), followed by Poland (-19.3 pp), Estonia (-18.6 pp), Bulgaria (-16.9 pp), Malta (-16.7 pp) and Hungary (-15.6 pp).

At EU level, the share of population who could not afford a one-week annual holiday away from home decreased by 5.1 percentage points between 2011 and 2016, from 38.0% to 32.9%.