This paper is to scrutinise the way that public work [közfoglalkoztatás] is adapted and utilised, as a national tool for the reintegration of the long-term unemployed into the world of labour in Hungary in a rural municipality characterised by highly ethnified unemployment. Public work as a workfare strategy to counteract welfare dependency of long-term unemployed was first formulated in 1996. Municipalities became obliged to organise public work from 2000. Meanwhile, it became a central tool for counteracting unemployment from 2009 as part of the “Way to work” [Ùt a munkához] strategy of the Socialist-Liberal coalition. The conservative government renamed this strategy as START, reducing eligibilities attached to it several times between 2011 and 2015.[1] Public work as a strategy to overcome long-term unemployment was subjected to extensive and varied criticism[2] describing public work as a “cul de sac”, rather than leading out of exclusion from the labour market, and was accused of being non-voluntary and having punitive features.[3]Studies indicate that the rate of return to the labour market even decreased in villages utilising extensive public work programmes