Project activities in Lithuania

Download a summary of the Lithuanian pilot project
Progress of the Lithuanian pilot project "Friday social dialogue school"
Lithuanian study: Lithuanian labour market: situation and perspectives
First results of the Lithuanian pilot project

Labour market situation in Lithuania - update 2011

Drastic economic contraction of Lithuanian economy, led by a sharp drop in domestic consumption and business investment, and additionally aggravated by a slump in foreign demand and severe fiscal consolidation, unsurprisingly had an adverse effect on labor market trends in Lithuania. As the economy recorded a 15% drop in GDP (one of the highest in the EU) in 2009, the number of unemployed more than doubled compared to 2008, with unemployment rate standing at 13,7% at the end of 2009.

Although, led by a strong export recovery, Lithuanian economic conditions have started to improve moderately in 2010, the overall economic situation has remained rather tight – as a result, unemployment rate has continued to climb through 2010 and is currently standing at 17,8%, with a peak of 18,3% recorded in the second quarter of 2010. This suggests that the number of the unemployed persons has reached 290 000, which is almost a 40 000 more than at the end of 2009.

The number of unemployed among men has slightly decreased in 2010 – having peaked at 23,2% in the first quarter of 2010, male unemployment has dropped to 20,3% in the third quarter of 2010. However, unemployment among women has continued to rise – from 13,1% at the beginning of 2010 to 15,3% in the third quarter of 2010. Better employment tendencies among men are in part due to a strong recovery in industrial and transportation sectors, which are highly related to strongly recovering export markets.

However, employment tendencies among the youth and tendencies among long-term unemployed have been especially poor. Youth unemployment has continued to rise during the first half of 2010 and has peaked at 37,1% in the second quarter of this year, followed by a moderate decrease to 35,5% in the third quarter. However, the number of long-term unemployed has continued to surge. According to Lithuanian Statistics department, 42% of the unemployed persons in Lithuania are long-term unemployed, i.e. are without a job for more than a year. The ratio has stood at 20% in the first quarter of 2009 and at 34% in the beginning of 2010.

All in all, although gradual economic recovery coupled with strong emigration flows have helped to improve employment statistics in several labor market groups and reduce the total number of the unemployed, the situation in Lithuanian labor market has remained tense in 2010, with no major improvements forecasted for the last quarter of 2010. The total unemployment rate is set to reach approximately 18% for 2010.

Labour market situation in Lithuania

On 1st of May of this year, there were 186,5 thousand registered unemployed and they accounted for 8,7 percent of the working age population.
Within four months of this year, Labour Exchange attained 146,4 thousand unemployed, what is more than twice bigger amount, than over the same period of year 2008. During January-April of this year employers registered more than 6,0 thousand vacancies for fixed-term and 18,8 thousand for permanent jobs. To compare it with same period of year 2008, fixed-term work supply increased (38 percent), and permanent work supply decreased (47 percent).

Chart. Difference between first 4 months of year 2009 and 2008

During the April 2009, there were received 23 reports of group dismissals, 1043 employees were noticed about dismissals. The most common reasons of employees dismissal – business bankruptcy cases (70 percent), employees number decreasing, due to the manufactured products demand reduction and adverse economic conditions (24 percent), companies liquidation (6 percent).
During the April most employees got warnings of dismissal in construction (33 percent), furniture producing (28 percent) and services (17 percent) sectors.

National action plan summary:
In the BSLN project the Lithuanian national team is planning to give the priority to the Employment policy. After the observation of the country’s labour market they will study how Lithuanian Government reacts to the crisis, what new decrees they are passing, what changes are making in the old ones etc. and how it affects the labour market. All the Lithuanian partners will collaborate, exchanging the information, discussing on how to influence on their decisions.
The Lithuanian team will focus on young people and will invest their time in education and dissemination of the information about the labour market and labour law with purpose to ensure, that employees are well informed and young people before integration in to the labour market have more knowledge about their rights.
So our seeks for the future is to establish trainers teams for schools and universities leavers to inform them well about main topics on labour market.

Partner organisations:
Lithuanian trade union „Solidarumas“, was established in 1989 as a part of the Sajudis, the movement for rebirth of Lithuania, and after implementing its political goal to restore the independence of Lithuania it was proclaimed to be the trade union. LPS “Solidarumas” structure includes 12 industrial trade union federations and 24 towns/regions territorial trade unions, Women’s council, Youth group.
Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation (LPSK) is a biggest trade union centre in Lithuania, at the moment comprises twenty-six branches of trade unions, Women and Youth Centres. LPSK was set up on 1st of May 2002 after the merger between two trade union centres: Lithuanian Trade Union Unification (LPSS) and Lithuanian Trade Union Centre (LPSC). At the moment LPSK covers about 75 000 members.
Lithuanian Labour Federation is a Christian trade union that was created in the Congress of Lithuanian Christian workers representatives’ on 27-28 of September, 1919 in Kaunas. The representatives of LDF participated in meetings of Lithuanian Parliament. They tried to solve cultural, political and occupational questions of workers. LDF was active until 1940. After Lithuania got its independence in 1991, LDF was recreated. At the moment LDF covers about 20 000 members.
At present, the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists unites 37 branch and 9 regional associations, over 2700 various enterprises in all. There are also LPK members who do not belong to associations and have joined the Confederation on individual basis. The LPK members include most Lithuanian production enterprises, banks, trading companies, representative offices of foreign firms, research institutes, and educational establishments. The activities of LPK members cover all the main branches of industry: nearly all goods manufactured in Lithuania are their products.

Links to organisations' websites and other important links in Lithuania:
Partners:
Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists http://www.lpk.lt/
Lithuanian Labour Federation http://www.ldf.lt/
Lithuanian Trade Union “Solidarumas” http://www.lps.lt/
Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation http://www.lpsk.lt/

Important links:
Lithuanian Labour Exchange at the Ministry of Social Security and Labour http://www.ldb.lt/Informacija/Puslapiai/default.aspx
Ministry of Social Security and Labour of Republic of Lithuania http://www.socmin.lt/
State Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Lithuania http://www.vdi.lt/
State Social Insurance Fund Board of the Republic of Lithuania http://www.sodra.lt/lt