 | “Obstacles to active inclusion in Budapest often require national solutions” 21-05-2008 When it comes to the dissemination of European good practices in the field of
active inclusion, we generally find there is a great focus on Western European
cases. Especially Central- and Eastern European countries and cities are often
left aside. This is critical, because the solutions that work in Western Europe,
are not necessarily effective in Central- and Eastern Europe. “Today the biggest
difficulty in Hungary is the high level of inactivity”, Luca Koltai, head of the
Office for Equal Opportunities of the Municipality of Budapest states. “We have
very high employment costs, which is why many people work on the black market.
Therefore, the inactivity rate in Budapest is very high. Among these inactive
people there are a lot of vulnerable groups such as women, Roma minorities and
older people.” The Office for Equal Opportunities provides a relatively new set
of services in Hungary in the field of active inclusion, targeting unemployed
people, employers and social service providers.
What are the main problems the ‘Office for Equal Opportunities’
tries to solve?
"Our office has a lot of different projects which fall under three project
groups. First of all, we deal with unemployed and inactive people. We support
them by providing social work, job counselling and professional training. By
offering these different types of services, we try to make it easier for
unemployed people to reintegrate into the labour market. Secondly, we target
employers by encouraging them to create a more diverse workforce. Nationally we
are the only organisation working on workplace diversity questions at the
moment. I believe it is an essential element though. Dealing with the unemployed
is just one part of the labour market. We also have to prepare the employers to
be inclusive and create workplaces for those people we are working with. The
third group of projects that we organise aims to create partnerships between
different social service providers. We try to help these organisations to create
partnerships in order to be able to serve the inactive people better. The idea
of establishing partnerships is not very developed in Hungary yet. However, we
try to be the organisation that generates increased cooperation between
different actors.”
To what extent have the objectives of the Office been met?
"We have been very successful in my opinion. It was especially a big step
ahead for us to when we started working with employers. Because we have active
contact with the demand side, we are now able to send people to the labour
market and offer them a workplace. This year we started to work as a service
provider for the National Employment Service as well. They send unemployed
people to us for job counselling and a wide range of high-level services. This
is a very good and new development in Hungary. It is also exactly what is needed
for people furthest from the labour market. For them it is not enough to simply
go to a registry and find a job. They need more support. Our staff can really
help people to go back to the labour market."
What kind of projects are most successful to re-integrate people
in the labour market?
"The more complex the project, the higher results we have. In the projects
which provide professional training, job counselling and other services, we have
a re-integration rate of about 70%. However, we also have short-term job
projects, in which we prepare people to work for different sectors for a short
term. Once their short-term job finishes, people come back to us, and we place
them again. Some of these people find a long-term job, but most of them always
stay in the unemployment circle. Nonetheless, we help them to at least stay in
the circle and not fall out.”
How does the future of the Office look? What are the plans for
the future?
“I am quite positive about the future. The Office is becoming more experienced and we are getting more and more projects. We also gained quite a strong voice in the municipality of Budapest and the Central Hungary region. The regional government often asks us what we think about the development of the region in relation to employment and social affairs. That is a very promising development. We also have some projects funded by the National Employment Service. Our increased links with other organisations mean that we are able to serve increasing numbers of inactive and unemployed people.” What are the biggest obstacles the Office faces?
“Today the biggest difficulty in Hungary is the economic situation. We have
very high employment costs, which is why the black labour market is quite
widespread. The economy is falling nowadays and we do not have too many new
jobs. Situations like this are always most difficult for vulnerable groups. Our
office often deals with the people hardest to reach, such as the long-term u
nemployed, inactive and Roma minorities. These are all people who have multip le
problems: social problems, childcare problems – sometimes they are even
homeless. This makes it very complex to help them.”
How do you address these difficulties?
“These problems need national solutions. We try to influence the national strategy. That is all we can do.” What should this national solution look like in your opinion?
“I think the national government should lower the employment costs and the taxes on employment. For companies it is very expensive to hire people. This causes problems for all types of employment.” What can we learn from the Office for Equal Opportunities in
Budapest?
“That partnership working is very important. We have to talk to each other and cooperate. Also on the market. We have to understand employers’ needs in order to be able to place help the unemployed. We have to understand different views and we have to find a way to cooperate between actors. However, it is also important to keep the context in mind. Sometimes things that work very well in Western European cities do not work over here at all, and vice versa.” For more information, please contact the Office for Equal Opportunities:
1091 Budapest Üllői út 45
Links+36 1 216 0809 Luca Koltai: koltai@pestesely.hu Visit the website of the Office for Equal Opportunities in Budapest back |
