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The study overviews the main mechanisms of public employment. It aims to understand the factors that influence what types and volume of resources settlements receive in order to increase their local employment opportunities. In order to do that we reviewed the database for the years 2011-2014 that includes the registry of jobseekers, public employment episodes and information regarding those receiving employment replacement subsidies. Additionally, we carried out 60 interviews during 2016-2017 in relevant ministries, national public employers, county and district employment offices and local level experts regarding the organization and regional distribution of public employment. The research found that while public employment was originally conceived as a labour market instrument, its social and settlement management role has grown much more significant during the years. As a consequence of this, the rapid downsizing of public employment without supplemental social and municipal financing measures might carry grave consequences. While public employment more or less follows the regional distribution of unemployment, there are significant deviations as well: in larger settlements the public worker-long-term-unemployed ratio is smaller and the number of public workers is heavily dependent on the ambitions of settlement leadership as well.