Is the emigration from Austria higher than emigration from Hungary and are the emigration rates of all the surrounding countries higher than in Hungary according to Eurostat? No, that's not true: According to publicly available raw data, more people left Hungary than Austria in 2021 but the emigration rate of Hungary is not high compared to its neighbours.
The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here), it was published by István Szakács on August 3, 2023 under the title:
It's wonderful to live in Hungary and it's disgusting if someone encourages you to leave the country!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing translated from Hungarian to English by Lead Stories staff::
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Aug 9 15:12:22 2023 UTC)
Liberals claim something different, but according to the data of Eurostat, emigration is higher even from the neighboring Austria than from Hungary. And all the neighboring countries' emigration rates are ahead of us.
This is what István Szakács claimed in his TikTok video.
Eurostat published emigration data for EU countries until 2021. The table shows the "total number of long-term emigrants leaving from the reporting country during the reference year." According to the 2021 data, 67,999 people left Hungary while 67,299 people left Austria. The numbers are close, however, more people left Hungary that year.
Emigration rates were calculated using Eurostat population data from 2021. For easier presentation, it is multiplied by 1,000: the result is therefore expressed per 1,000 persons (of the average population). Hungary's emigration rate is 7.01. In Austria it's 7.5; Slovakia 0.6; Romania 11.3; 10.4 in Croatia; 10 in Slovenia. While Hungary's emigration rate is one of the lowest in the region, Slovakia's rate is significantly lower.
