Hungary

1.Series

Title:

Registered unemployment.

Starting year:

1990.

2.Agency making the initial registrations of unemployed persons

Name of the agency:

Allami Foglalkoztatási Szolgálat (Public Employment Service).

Type of agency:

Public service under a national authority.

Name of the national authority:

Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Location of the local offices making the registrations:

There are 11 offices in the capital city, Budapest, and 165 offices in the 19 counties of the country (with 20 Labour Centres).

Type of services provided/administered by the agency:

Assisting job-seekers to find jobs;

Assisting job-seekers to establish their own business;

Assisting employers to find workers;

Vocational guidance;

Job-related training;

Paying unemployment compensation;

Other: administering active labour market programmes; issuing work permits to foreign citizens; providing labour market information at all levels (statistics, analyses, projections).

Percentage of job-seekers seeking work through the agency:

80%.

3.The following information is registered about a person:

Name;

Sex;

Social security number (or similar identification number also used by other agencies);

Address of usual residence;

Date of birth;

Citizenship (only in the case of work permits for foreign citizens);

Educational/vocational attainment, with 10 categories distinguished. Links to ISCED have been established;

Current/past activity status, with 4 categories distinguished;

Type of work (occupation) of past or present job with 632 categories distinguished. Links to ISCO-88 have been established (minor groups level);

Type of work (occupation) of job sought, with 692 categories distinguished. Links to ISCO-88 have been established (minor groups level);

Name and address of present or previous employer or work place;

Type of business (industry) of present/previous employer/workplace, with 503 categories distinguished. Links to NACE, rev.1 have been established (tabulation categories level);

Previous registrations with the agency/service.

4.Criteria used for inclusion of a person in the registers (R) and/or the statistics of unemployed persons (S):

Being without work (S);

Seeking work (S);

Availability for work (S);

Age (upper limit: old age pension age) (S);

Being resident in the country (S).

5.Criteria used for exclusion of a person from the registers (R) and/or the statistics of unemployed persons (S):

Death (R) and (S);

Commencement of a (new) job (S);

Commencement of military service (S);

Participation in an employment promotion scheme, public works programme, etc. (S);

Studying or undergoing training (S);

Failure to contact the agency/service (S);

Refusal of one suitable job offer (S);

Refusal of one suitable training offer (S);

Receipt of a pension (S);

Inability to work (S);

Other: at own request (R) and (S).

6.Definition of unemployed persons used for the statistics

Job-seekers who fulfil the following conditions:

are not employed and do not carry out any other remunerative activity;

have all the necessary conditions to start a job;

are not eligible to receive an old age pension;

are not full-time students of an educational institution;

cooperate with the local labour office in order to find a job;

are registered by the local labour office as unemployed.

7.Updating of the registers

The registers are updated on a continuous basis.

8.Unemployment rates

Statistics from the registers are used to obtain unemployment rates.

The source of data on employed persons who are part of the denominator of the unemployment rates is the annual Labour Account of the National Economy (reference day: 1 January) published by the Central Statistical Office.

Definition of employed persons for this purpose:

All employees, individual entrepreneurs and self-employed persons;

Working owners;

Helping family members (over a certain amount of time worked).

9.Type of statistics of unemployed persons produced

Series 1:

Reference period:

Month.

Frequency of production:

Monthly.

Descriptive variables used:

Sex;

Age;

Educational level;

Geographic characteristics;

Previous work experience;

Duration of unemployment.

Form of publication:

On paper, for general audience;

Website (under development).

Agency responsible for publication:

National Employment Office.

Title of the publication:

Labour Market Situation.

Series 2:

Reference period:

Year.

Frequency of production:

Yearly.

Descriptive variables used:

Sex;

Age;

Educational level;

Geographic characteristics;

Previous work experience;

Duration of unemployment.

Form of publication:

On paper, for general audience.

Agency responsible for publication:

National Employment Office.

Title of the publication:

Time series based on the administrative records of the Public Employment Service.

10.Methodological information about the statistics

Form of release:

On paper, for general audience;

Website (under development).

Agency responsible for the release:

National Employment Office.

11.Comparisons with unemployment statistics from other sources

Comparisons have been made with unemployment statistics from the Labour Force Survey and the Population Census.

Frequency of the comparisons:

Occasionally (latest year: 1998).

Publication of the methodology/results of the comparisons:

They were published for a joint press conference of the Central Statistical Office and the Ministry of Labour in May 1998. The comparison with the results of the 2001 Population Census will be published late 2002.

12.Major changes since the start of the statistics

There have been no major changes in legislation, capacity of the agency and/or administrative procedures which had a significant influence on the statistics.