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Statistics in normal times…

The mission of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) is to support fact-based decision-making, scientific research and the exchange of views between social actors, with credible and official statistics and analyses of reliable quality.

As part of our daily activities, we carry out data collections (relying on our data providers) we process the received data and make them available to all who are interested. Our users differ significantly in terms of the depth of their interest, purposes for the use of data, and time and tools at their disposal, which is why we create a wide range of products from the statistical information produced: databases, ready-made tables, maps, analyses and interactive diagrams.

… and during a pandemic

The function of statistics is to hold up a mirror to ourselves; therefore, as our lives and circumstances change, statistics needs to keep pace with and even prepare for these changes.

In addition to traditional statistical indicators, initiatives have been launched in recent years to measure well-being, include Big Data in official statistics, and to add new tools such as satellite imagery and camera images to traditional data sets. Cooperation with private sector data holders while maintaining strict data protection rules is on the agenda. Immediately prior to the pandemic, environmental and climate change indicators had come into focus.

As a result of the pandemic, statistical offices have found themselves in a new circumstance: preferences have shifted, what is interesting and relevant to users has changed, and timeliness and frequency of dissemination have become even more important than just a year ago. In response, the HCSO has launched developments in several areas:

HCSO’s developments in the wake of the pandemic

Certain data are produced with improved timeliness:

  • labour market flash data
  • demographic data

Important data are now released more frequently in the following areas:

  • mortality
  • retail trade

Relying in part on new data sources, new or more detailed information is being released in the following areas:

  • demographic data based on the Electronic register system
  • inactive private entrepreneurs, based on the Register of private entrepreneurs
  • rental dwellings and rental price levels based on Ingatlan.com data, as a result of longer preparatory work
  • highway motor vehicle traffic based on camera data
  • online cash register data
  • data from online price comparison sites
  • medicine turnover, bed occupancy, time spent in inpatient care based on data from the National Health Insurance Fund of Hungary
  • foreign trade in medical devices
  • educational data based on FIR (tertiary education information system) database
  • people struggling for their livelihood (related to their situation in the labour market)

We have improved our traditional modes of dissemination in the following areas:

  • a comprehensive overview is provided on the most important indicators by our new interactive weekly chart collection entitled Weekly Monitor, from which data can also be downloaded in various file formats
  • our first releases highlight the impact of the pandemic
  • a weekly table was inserted into STADAT (our comprehensive table system)

Estimates are provided on the impact of the pandemic for key economic areas: