The Government will create further new jobs in the next four years, and seeks to achieve full employment in cooperation with the world of business as well as to significantly increase the number of qualified workers, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Tuesday in Budapest at the ceremony held on the occasion of the opening of the training centre of Siemens.
Viktor Orbán highlighted, the goal they wish to achieve is that no one should need income supplement support by 2018 and everyone should have jobs which do not only provide a mere living but enable people to prosper.
The Prime Minister said that Siemens rebuilt its former training workshop with a view to accommodating dual, practice-oriented training as a result of a project worth in excess of HUF 600 million; the German company will now be able to train as many as 100 students. The Hungarian Government contributed to the project with HUF 224 million, he added.
Viktor Orbán takes the view that the prestige of vocational training must be restored; the opening of the Siemens training centre testifies to the fact that the company has faith in the Hungarian people’s expertise and diligence and believes that it is worth investing in young Hungarians.
Viktor Orbán believes that, by virtue of the opening of the centre, Siemens is undertaking to play a prominent role in restoring the prestige of vocational education in Hungary. The Prime Minister argued that work, vocational training and culture form a natural, integral whole at Siemens, and dual training has been in place in Germany in this spirit for 120 years.
The Prime Minister takes the view that the emphasis was shifted from practice to theory in response to a „misguided educational system”. He drew attention to the fact that while the rate of unemployment currently stands at 7.5 per cent, there are thousands of unfilled jobs in the absence of qualified work force. The Government is working on remedying this situation, Viktor Orbán said, and expressed his belief that the restoration of the prestige of vocational training may represent the solution to this problem.
Dale A. Martin, President-Chief Executive Officer of Siemens Zrt. said that Siemens was the first in Hungary to introduce the dual training system, based on the German model which has successfully operated in Germany for some 120 years to great acclaim, in the economy almost 20 years ago. This year, students in their 3rd year will start their studies in the training centre, he added.
The President-Chief Executive Officer said that Siemens, the Hungarian economy and Hungarian companies equally benefit from the new training centre as they are training competent experts with language skills – welders and industrial mechanics – in the institution, but he sincerely hopes that training will also be extended to further vocations in the future.
Dale A. Martin reiterated that he is proud of Siemens’s ever expanding presence in Hungary; the number of employees has increased dynamically in the past four years, and Siemens Hungary now employs more than 2,500 people. The new training centre will not only train competitive experts with international expertise but will also help students acquire that which cannot be learnt in school: a sophisticated work culture and innovation.
Klaus Helmrich, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG highlighted that the training and enhanced expertise of staff members is very important for Siemens. He added that, in addition to engineers and physicians, the expertise of qualified workers is equally important as it is thanks to their cooperation that Siemens is able to appear with products of the highest quality on the market. He took the view that adequate dual training lays the foundations for the future of young people, and the opening of the training centre in Budapest also symbolises the firm’s excellent cooperation with the Government.
The inauguration ceremony of the Siemens Training Centre was attended, among others, by the German Ambassador to Budapest, Minister of National Economy Mihály Varga, and László Parragh, President of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.