The significance of public works programmes in rural settlements of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county

Abstract

The treatment of unemployment has been a long-researched topic both in the international and in the Hungarian economic and sociological literature. High unemployment and weak human resource potential are an important problem in Hungary's peripheral regions, settlements and small villages. Unemployed people are provided with employment from public funds by the central or local government. A common form of this is a Public Work Scheme, between relief and real work. Public employment originally served to save the costs of state and local government tasks and developments in the interest of the community through work, in practice this became the only and permanent employment opportunity in some settlements.

Public employment in today's sense was created in Hungary to eliminate the structural difficulties caused by the change of regime. Public Work Scheme, as a public policy tool, originally served to redeem the costs of state and local government tasks and developments in the interest of the community through work. The main task of Public Work Scheme nowadays is to replace some of the lost income of individuals excluded from the labour market, to carry out value-creating work with the unemployed, and to reduce livelihood crime. For the unemployed, the central or local government can provide - mostly temporary - employment opportunities from public funds. Unemployed people can be provided with central - or local government - mostly temporary - employment opportunities from public funds. A common form of this is public employment between assistance and real work. During the work of Éva G. Fekete, she studied public employment for several decades and conducted research. I also took part in these researches and my interest and approach to the topic was greatly influenced by the joint work. Éva G. Fekete with her colleagues in several researches examined public employment and mixed economy opportunities in rural areas. The aim of this study is to repeat the questionnaire survey on the public employment situation conducted in 2010 in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, in order to explore and analyse the changes that have taken place since then.

The questionnaire survey, repeated 10 years later, brought changes compared to the 2010 survey. The situation of small villages and peripheral settlements has not improved significantly and the most pressing issue for them remains the solution and management of high unemployment. I believe that tackling the labour market problems of small villages requires an innovative, novel approach on the part of the settlement management, but this can only be achieved in settlements where there is still a young, willing and able-bodied resident.

The domestic employment policy is based on the paradigm of jobs, ie the focus is on the classic wage work and the expansion of the number of jobs. Based on global trends, a lasting imbalance between wage-type jobs and the working-age population is to be expected. The social organizing function of work should be better emphasized in the future and there should be an even greater shift from job-centric to work-centric or income-centric. This would be urgent in a backward, rural area, such as the region of Northern Hungary, taking into account, of course, that the available labour reserve is only limited or suitable for development. I agree with the opinion of Éva G. Fekete that the construction of mixed employment and income generation models can provide a solution in areas with persistently high unemployment and low entrepreneurial potential.