A business looking for a new employee. A jobseeker looking for a way to make a living. A region where every new opportunity matters. In the end, the most interesting stories are still about people.
Let’s be honest: some expressions are unlikely to make anyone’s pulse race with excitement. At first glance, “employment pact” is one of them. But once we look beyond project identification numbers, operational programmes and target groups, real human stories begin to emerge. These are stories about work, financial security and the chance to start again. That already makes it easier to keep reading, does it not?
The Nógrád Free Enterprise Zone Local Employment Pact was launched to create jobs and build genuine cooperation between organisations across the region. Funded by the European Union, the project brought together the districts of Pásztó, Bátonyterenye, Szécsény and Salgótarján.
For more than six years, municipalities, professional partners, development organisations, local groups and the government office worked together. Their aim was to provide practical support to disadvantaged jobseekers, economically inactive people and those wishing to move on from public employment schemes.
The support offered far more than promises. Participants received training, counselling, mentoring and labour market services. The programme also provided wage and employment-cost subsidies, support for starting a business, help with commuting expenses and personalised advice. All these services helped participants move towards stable, long-term employment and financial security.
Young people were also an important part of the initiative. Through the career guidance programme “Open Factories – Get Closer to the Professions!”, students visited local businesses and learned about different occupations first-hand. This helped them make better-informed decisions about their future careers.
The project originally aimed to involve 895 people, but 908 eventually joined the programme. Several hundred participants found work with the help of various forms of support, while many others secured jobs through direct job-placement services.
Altogether, participants used support services on more than two thousand occasions. This shows how important continuous guidance, personal assistance and mentoring can be in situations like these. It also explains why a programme cannot simply be considered finished when its funding period comes to an end.
Although the Nógrád Free Enterprise Zone Employment Pact has officially concluded, its impact continues. It lives on in the local relationships built over the years and in the knowledge and experience shared by those involved.
Thanks to this work, someone may once again leave home for a new job one morning. Someone else may enrol in a training course. After a long period of uncertainty, another person may finally feel that there is a way forward.
And that is a far more engaging story than the project’s official title might first suggest.
The development was implemented from EU funding in the project TOP-5.1.2-15-NG1-2016-00002 under the Territorial and Settlement Development Operational Programme.
Find out more about the project in the Project Finder:Details
