| Sumario: | This report documents the main features of the Public Employment Service (PES) in Slovak Republic, with attention to unemployment benefit administration as well as employment services. The current institutional structure was established in 2004. The Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family (COLSAF), a budget organisation of the state, governs 46 territorial local offices, corresponding to the needs of labour market administration rather than the political division of the country into districts. The local offices administer social assistance benefits and state social support1. They also take jobseekers’ applications and supporting documentation for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, but subsequent administration is now handled by the national Social Insurance Agency. Local offices are now allowed to outsource many employment services, including the professional counselling of jobseekers. In a context of restrictions on staff numbers, by 2006 they had contracted about 8% of total spending on placement and related services out to external providers. Expenditure on placement and related services, not including general management and administration costs, is estimated here to be about 0.07% of GDP, which is around the OECD average, although the Slovak Republic has long had the highest, or near-highest, unemployment rate in the OECD. Since 2004, unemployment has fallen sharply, and employment service staffing has increased: by 2006, there were on average 116 registered jobseekers per front-line local-office staff member (counting information, counselling and placement officers) which was a big improvement on the workload indicators a few years earlier.
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