20 Years After EU Enlargement: Visegrád Countries Still Have an Advantage in Terms of Cost Competitiveness

Twenty years after the EU accession of the Visegrád countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary – we analyse their development of unit labour costs and of the labour share in manufacturing for the years 1995 to 2023. Firstly, the labour shares in the Visegrád countries have risen significantly since 2004 and have converged towards the levels of Germany and France. Secondly, a convergence of unit labour costs in manufacturing is detectable, which is not yet complete. Thus, the Visegrád countries still have an advantage in terms of cost competitiveness as rising labour costs have been partly offset by significant productivity gains.