Evaluation of the modernisation of the Hungarian Public Employment Service

The Public Employment Service (PES) is a player of great importance in the field of employment policy. Its aim is to help and motivate the unemployed to find job as soon as possible. The operation of the PES is therefore essential in order to apply the policy tools and to meet the targets set out in the European Employment Strategy. Without an efficient PES, delivering the required services is difficult and can be overly expensive.

The aim of this evaluation was to assess the efficiency of the development measures of the HRDOP 1.2 programme, which continued the development efforts of the original Phare development project and offer advice to be used in the ongoing SROP 1.3.1 programme. The evaluation covered the integrated IT infrastructure of the unemployment register, the monitoring system of active labour market programmes, the new, client oriented service model, the new system of quality assurance, training schemes connected to the delivery of these, and finally, the refurbishment of local PES offices.

We analysed the documents of the programme, carried out interviews with key participants and used econometric methods to assess whether the development had a measurable effect on the efficiency of the participating offices.

The evaluation was carried out within the evaluation framework agreement with the National Development Agency and in partnership with IFUA Horváth&Partners ltd. The final evaluation report (in Hungarian) and an English summary are available for download.