Labour market policy in Estonia is organised primarily by the National Labour Market Board, that was formed in1991 and works under the juristiction of the Ministry of Social Affairs. According to the status of the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs, the main tasks of the National Labour Market Board are:
             · Organising the registration of the unemployed and establishing the order of paying them benefits and supervising this system;
             · Administering labour mediation services designed to bring employees and employers together;
             · Administering vocational planning and counselling on dividing and re-dividing the labour force in the national economy on the basis of the structural changes in it;
             · Co-ordinating advances training and retraining to develop the labour potential of the population.
             At the present there are nearly fifty local employment offices in Estonia. Estonian Employment offices have for the most part implemented the measures of passive labour policy registering job seekers and the unemployed; pay benefits to them. Some active labour policy measures have also been implemented to guarantee social protection of unemployed.
             Social protection of the unemployed in the Estonia is provided by the state. It is mostly short term, usually for six months. There is no voluntary unemployment insurance, although preparations for that are underway. There are two reasons why some of the unemployed do not get unemployment benefits: he/she has already exhausted the benefits he/she was entitled to, or length of prior employment is insufficient.
             In Estonia social protection of the unemployed was defined by government decrees until the end of the 1994. The Law on Social Protection of the unemployed came into effect on January 1995. The aim of the Law on Social Protection of the unemployed is, legally regulate labour market services on behalf of the unemployed and to administrate the payments of une...