[1] Hytten immigrated to Australia in 1910, initially settling in New South Wales and working for periods as a labourer in Newcastle, at a ship chandler in Sydney, and as a truck driver in Broken Hill.

He lived in Broken Hill between 1913 and 1918, where he was active in trade unions and attended Workers' Educational Association (WEA) sessions.

[1] In 1918, Hytten moved to Tasmania and found work in the mining districts on the West Coast, also writing for the Zeehan and Dundas Herald.

He kept in touch with Heaton and soon moved to Hobart where he became secretary of the local branch of the WEA and worked as a journalist for The World and the short-lived News.

His tenure proved contentious and he dealt with a number of issues, including poor working conditions, low staff salaries, and delays in the planned move from The Domain to a new campus at Sandy Bay.

[1] Hytten attracted public attention in 1949 with his comments opposing the existing bipartisan consensus on full employment, suggesting that a permanent unemployment rate of between six and eight percent would be ideal for economic stability.

[1] Hytten bequeathed a memoir titled To Australia With Thanks: Reminiscences of an Immigrant to the University of Tasmania, which was unpublished at the time of his death.

His recollections of his fellow economists, including Brigden, Copland, Giblin and Roland Wilson, have been an important source for historians of 20th-century Australian economic thought.

[4] In 1959, the University of Tasmania established Hytten Hall, a male-only residential college at its new Sandy Bay campus.