Orinta Leipute, member of the Lithuanian Seimas, delivered a welcome address on behalf of the Seimas Committee on Education, Science and Culture. She noted that the committee examines problems pertaining to higher education and vocational training, continuously monitors training of specialists for the labour market, the quality of studies in higher education institutions, and cooperation between science and business by exercising parliamentary scrutiny. Particular attention is currently paid to graduate employment issues.
Leipute noted that the Seimas adopted, in April this year, amendments to the Law on Education that should open the door to a long-term and continuous monitoring of labour matching. She believes that the data collected will make it possible to determine how long it takes for educated people to get employed, the duration of their employment and average wage, as well as the proportion of unemployed people according to educational institutions, their education level, training or study programmes, study area, field and form. Monitoring of labour matching will help to identify what skills will be necessary for Lithuania's economic development.
The first session, which was devoted to the labour market of the Baltic States, heard a report by Andrius Adomaitis, deputy director of Klaipeda Labour Exchange. He spoke about recently improving trends in employment and unemployment in Lithuania. Adomaitis said that the year 2014 saw the highest employment rate across all age groups, of both men and women, over the past five years. The employment rate for people aged 15-64 increased by 2 percentage points to 65.7%. The unemployment rate stood at 10.7% in 2014 and was 1.1 percentage points lower than in 2013. At the same time, the youth unemployment rate amounted to 19.3% in 2014, but it was 2.6 percentage points lower compared to 2013.
The deputy director of Klaipeda Labour Exchange pointed to the growing number of foreigners applying for work permits in Lithuania. Presenting the situation in Klaipeda, he said that most applications currently come from Ukraine (80%) and Belarus (almost 9%). Statistics show that most foreigners are employed in the service sector, with a smaller part of them working in industry and construction, and that driving international freight vehicles is the most popular occupation.
In his analysis of the most important problems related to the Lithuanian labour market, Adomaitis pointed to the low economic activity by people, rigid labour market, still high level of undeclared work, and meagre wages. He said that the Employment Programme for 2014-2020 approved by the Government specifies how to address these problems. The programme is aimed at increasing the number of employed people (aged 15-64) by 28.3% and reducing the number of higher education graduates registered with territorial labour exchanges to 5% and that of persons with vocational training to 18%.
Representatives from the Ministry of Welfare of Latvia and Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia also gave an overview of the labour market situation in their countries.
