The institutions and resources of the Hungarian employment policy

1. The institutions and resources of the Hungarian employment policy Csoba Judit csoba.judit@arts.unideb.hu Crisis – Reform – Change Conference and book launch Debrecen, 15.11.2012.

3. 1. The employment situation after the fall of socialism • loss of old markets and gradually increasing • uncertainty, • - full employment an unrealistic promise, • - the number of the "hidden unemployed" grew • significantly, • expectations toward „privatization” and • restructuring of the economy was extremely • high, • employment seemed to be unmanageable

4. 2. The emergence of unemployment • the number of job-seekers registered at • employment agencies since 1987 • economy, companies and institutions employed • many more people than they actually needed • hidden unemployment, "unemployment within • he gates.„ • to criminalize people who had lost their jobs • the positive "job-seeker" and the negative "work- • shy„ • the first unemployment benefit was first granted • in 1989

6. Employment rates in some countries in the age group of 15 to 64 Source: OECD, StatExtracts, 2011 http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=STLABOUR#

7. The structure of unemployment • unemployment occurs more frequently with a • low level of schooling, • -men's unemployment rate has increased compared to • that of women's, • high unemployment rate by young people, • high rate of long-term unemployment -

11. 3. Managing unemployment: the system of labour market institutions • the municipal councils playedthe role since 1950s by the organizing labor force recruitment, • to develop the formerly existing labour force management activity into a service was made in the early 80s, • a uniform system was first created by ÁBMH (1985), • by the end of 1988, 262 out of the former 479 employment offices operated within the framework of the service, including 20 county offices and a total of 36 regional offices in 11 counties employing about 220 people. • in the second half of the 80s the network of service offices already dealt each year with 200,000 job-seekers

12. Managing unemployment: the system of labour market instruments • 1985 "re-training support„ • 1986 extension of the period of notice and job-seeking benefit • 1987the possibility of early retirement • 1987 public employment program • 1988 Employment Fund was established with the aim to support an increasing number of active labour market measures,

13. Managing unemployment: the system of passive measure • the first unemployment benefit was granted on January 1, 1989, • Act IV of 1991 on the promotion of employment and unemployment benefit • the period of provision was gradually decreased in the past 20 years, • the duration of the originally 24 month long unemployment benefit is only 3 months (90 days) since September 1, 2011. • 1993 means-tested social benefit • by 2011 41.1 % of the registered unemployed were not entitled to any kind of passive welfare provision – neither unemployment nor social benefits.

14. Managing unemployment: the system of activemeasure • from the middle of the 70s to the middle of the 80s: reorganization of the training system without any other social welfare services, • the earliest and most widely used active measure is the public employment programms • more than 2/3 of all resources available for the financing of active measures were used for these three active measures during the past few years.

16. Thank you for your attention! csoba.judit@arts.unideb.hu