Returning from the UK, he set up his own business in his hometown: he now manages fifty people and plans further development.

No other business was considered

We met G. Norkum in Kėdainiai, in one of his three offices. The other two, as they say only when they come, are in Vilnius and Kaunas.

“Our company is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year,” he says. “If the quarantine ends, we can celebrate, if not, unfortunately.”

The businessman sitting in the meeting room tells us that the bread and butter of the company is freight transport in Lithuania and the Baltic countries, as well as in Poland.

“It just came to our notice then. We are a company that organizes freight transportation, and all of our transportation is outsourced.

We do not invest in the transport itself, our entire fleet today, about 300, is subcontracted to smaller companies ”, he explains again.

G. Norkus says that the history of the founding of his company is simple and indistinguishable, starting from emigration, when he and his future wife Jurgita spent 3-4 years in Great Britain.

There he explains that he tasted the emigrant’s bread, worked in agricultural work, but never doubted that he would return to Lithuania.

“Somehow I felt that our home was in Lithuania. Very often, older people abroad say that you are still a migrant, there is often a language and cultural barrier. We came back with a small contingency plan, we said yes Lithuania It was not successful, we would go abroad, but that plan was no longer necessary ”, he is happy.

When the couple returned, they settled in Kėdainiai, which is the birthplace of Jurgita.

“We bought an apartment here, I got a job as a manager for a logistics company. I worked there for several years and I decided that I had to go do my business ”, the manager says openly and then he says about a branch of business other than logistics, without even thinking about it.

“I liked it, I liked it, I saw myself in this field, I had ideas of how to do everything faster, better.

Then we came up with that idea and I went out, started working for myself.

At that time, he had saved maybe 50 thousand working abroad, working in Lithuania. We created a company with them, we rented premises in Kėdainiai and bought computers, ”he recalls.

The job is secured by the man who then started alone and then the team quickly filled up.

“I’ve had many contacts before. People came to work together, so that was the beginning. When we started our business, we grew and grew,” says G. Norkus.

Missing drivers

Today, the human-owned company employs more than 50 people. According to him, most of them, about 40, work in the main office of the company in Kėdainiai, and another 15 people, in Kaunas and Vilnius.

“It just came to our attention then. It may not be as good as we would like, but we found it.

The problems, I would say, are typical, there are huge generational differences. When we get 20-25 m. People are often unmotivated, they don’t know what they want, they don’t put in enough effort, they want a quick result. Less than 30 m. people rarely speak Russian, ”he explains.

It is true that, although Linėja Transport does not have its own trucks and does not hire drivers directly, G. Norkus says that the driver shortage is especially felt today.

“Today there are dozens of trucks in our carrier’s fleet simply because there are no drivers. The cargo is there, but there is no one to transport it to. I think this problem will increase over the years, because drivers are getting old and young. they no longer want to drive, ”he says.

When asked if there is a problem with the proposed low wages, he explains that this is a debatable topic.

“I am also in favor of the fact that people have to work and earn money, but there are several companies in Lithuania.

There have been cases in which the drivers have been intimidated, discounted, but here is the agreement of each company. However, I think wages will have to grow because there is no other way, ”he says, assuring that because they work with smaller companies that have between 1 and 10 trucks, they find it more difficult to find employment for Ukrainians or Belarusians.

“There are also language barriers, because at the point of download, others do not speak Russian, all kinds of situations arise,” adds the businessman.

According to him, the hunt for competent heads of administrators is also strongly felt in the transport sector at the moment.

“When I come to work, I often ask how many employees have received offers to change jobs today. The companies are expanding, ”says the manager, saying that he is currently looking for three specialists, and the annual plan is to employ about 10 more people in 2021.

As a result of the mobility package, carriers create subsidiaries

Norkus also talks about how the company survived the pandemic.

“It just came to our attention then. There were a lot of fights, a lot of everything we were wearing. We said that if we go through the quarantine so much, everything will be very good and fun, but after two weeks we were disappointed because the number of shipments dropped.

Then we lived weak enough for two months, then everything shot up again and we drove well all summer until Christmas.

January and February were pretty bad, but they were also affected by the weather, heavy snow and cold. We had accidents. January and February are also the worst months of the year due to seasonality, as well as quarantine, ”he says.

The manager explains that during the first quarantine it was much more difficult for the company to plan the work, because later it was difficult to get masks, there was a lack of disinfectant liquid.

When asked about the mobility package and its implications for businesses, Norkus said he was noticing some changes.

“There is a lot of information in the public space that transport companies are fleeing Lithuania, but I don’t know how true that is. Perhaps, I believe that today they are not escaping from here, but that everyone is establishing subsidiaries in other places to facilitate relocation if necessary.

In any case, there is a lot of uncertainty about the mobility package, because everyone is thinking about what to do, considering alternatives, but what it will be like is not clear, ”he says, explaining that today there are more questions than answers.

At the end of the conversation, G. Norkus assures that he did not regret leaving the UK 14 years ago and returning to Lithuania.

“I am an ideological resident of Lithuania. We need to live here, we need to create here and I just encourage people to come back and create something new. People have all kinds of fears, but here everything is very good, ”he says, and already tells us that he can live here and earn well.