Labour retention in South Transdanubia during the pandemic

Our empirical research involved organisations operating in South Transdanubia (n = 241). The study aims to investigate the practices and methods adopted in the region to maintain the workforce during the pandemic. The research (questionnaire) sought to answer the question of how firms in the region, depending on their organisational size, adopt different HR practices to retain their workforce. In our study we confirmed all three hypotheses, regarding how organisations apply different HR practices to retain their workforce depending on their size, which is related to the different ways they develop their employees’ skills and the different programmes they use to deal with labour shortages. The sample is criticized for not being representative, although it seeks to be as heterogeneous as possible, which calls into question the generalisability of the results. In the future, we would like to examine whether the trends observed in South Transdanubia can be perceived in other parts of the country as part of a comparative study.

Keywords: economic crisis, workforce management, labour retention, pandemic, South Transdanubia