The National Employment Service (NES), a public agency under the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development,1 administers unemployment insurance along with job-brokering and counselling services and other active labour market programmes (ALMPs), mostly regulated in the 2003 Law on Employment and Unemployment Insurance. With 26 main offices2 and at least 130 small outlets, the NES has about 2 100 staff members, of whom 1 100 are counsellors and related groups in contact with clients. The average number of registered unemployed persons per counsellor can then be roughly assessed at about 500, or more than twice as high as in most western European countries. However, if the total staff resources could be related to the number of unemployment benefit recipients alone, the ratio would decline to about 50, which is similar to the corresponding ratios for the best-equipped employment service agencies in OECD countries (e.g. those in the United Kingdom, Germany and Nordic countries).