The key priority of the Hungarian public administration concerning employment is clearly the further activation of inactive citizens but also the placement of public workers and registered-jobseeker to the primary labour market. The latest degree describes (1139/2017 (III.20.) Gov. Degree) the cutback of the Public Work Scheme to 150 thousand public workers at monthly bases by 2020. This provision has and will have direct effect on the work of the Hungarian PES.
Another aim of the government is to call back and reintegrate Hungarian migrant in the labour market of the country and at least slow down the brain drain mainly to Austria, Germany and the UK.

While PES related tasks are scattered among many ministries, and between the different departments of the Ministry of Finance to which the most important employment policy related issues belong (see the Structure descriptions below), the department to which can be regarded as the main coordination entity of PES is named Employment Service Department. Its tasks can be described as follows:

• prepares technical recommendations for transforming, developing active employment policy instruments and introducing and applying new flexible types of employment;
• coordinates the professional activities of employment centres;
• collaborates in the preparation of legal regulations in connection with and associated with employment policy and issuing opinions in connection with drafts by compiling technical documents;
• operates and improves the Management by Objectives system to plan and monitor results;

As of June 2018 the Hungarian PES belongs the the Ministry of Finance (formerly it operated under the Ministry for National Economy).

The Hungarian PES is not a state agency but a part of the government body. It means that the traditional head office of the PES is currently the Deputy State Secretariat for the Labour Market of the Ministry and the tasks of the former head office are divided between different ministries (Ministry of Finance, Ministry for Human Capacities (occupational rehabilitation related tasks), Ministry for Interior (public work scheme), Ministry of Agriculture (public work scheme in the area of agriculture), the Ministry for Innovation and Technology (adult and vocational training) and last but not least the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister.

The medium level of the agency is part of the Government County Offices, in some cases with separate employment department, sometimes as part of the employment and social security or customer protection department of the county office. At the local level (NUTS IV) usually there is an employment department/ unit responsible for the local offices. In some cases these departments are also integrated with different tasks such as customer protection, family protection etc. The current situation is the outcome of the 2011-2017 structural changes and a further reshape as a result of the April 2018 election.

Concerning autonomy it is somewhat curbed at all levels due to the above-mentioned multi partner governance structure where full agreement with and coordination of tasks coming from other Ministries is a necessity.

The Hungarian PES is part of the territorial units of the central administration. Its staff – at national, county and district level – have civil servant status.

The core or classical activities of the Hungarian PES are carried out within the Ministry of Finance under the State Secretariat for Employment and Corporate Relations, and within that through the different departments of the Deputy State Secretariat for the Labour Market. The department belonging to this latter are:

Labour Market Department,
Labour Market Programmes Department,
Labour Market Regulation Department,
Labour Inspectorate Department,
Employment Inspectorate Department,
Employment Service Department,

The human capacities of the Hungarian PES are controlled by the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister and the County Government Offices.

The Hungarian PES operates as part of regional public administration, and it defines its partners accordingly. PES performs operational programmes (OP) measures in relation to which project-based strategies are created (see LDOP, YGS, etc.). At the national level, the National Competitiveness Council (NCC), presided by the Minister of Finance (formerly Minister for National Economy but this ministry ceased to exist in 2018 and has been partly replaced by the Ministry for Finance), started in March 2017. In addition, forums for the reconciliation of interests are the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) based on Act XCIII of 2011, and the Public Service Reconciliation Forum (PSRF).

The tasks to be executed are defined by the Minister leading MNE based on NESC agreements. Beside the framework of high politics, Ministry of Finance aims at forming local-level employer PES pacts within the framework of the Local Development Operational Programme.