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According to Swedbank chief economist Nerijus Mačiulis, although this time it is difficult for factories due to the unstable number of employees, the Lithuanian industry has grown compared to last year.
“This year will be a record year for many Lithuanian industrial companies. (…) Overall, production volumes are already higher in the 10 months of this year, even after the spring recession. Export orders Lithuania continue to grow, indicating that industrial growth should continue in the coming months ”, says the economist.
Vidmantas Janulevičius, president of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists (LPK), notes that this is most likely influenced by global factors.
“Due to the new possibilities of transporting products, it is much more convenient for customers in the European Union to shorten supply chains and order certain groups of products not from Asian countries, but from Baltic or Eastern European manufacturers,” says V. Janulevičius.
According to him, this creates, albeit temporarily, an obvious need for replacement personnel.
Replacement staff constantly needed
If a few weeks ago, due to the increase in diseases in factories, companies were forced to reduce the number of shifts and work less efficiently, today the situation is more stable.
“At least in the Vilnius region, the situation has stabilized. (…) The number of cases in manufacturing companies in the Kaunas region is still growing somewhat, but there are obvious signs of stabilization in northern Lithuania. , and the situation in western Lithuania is not very bad either: everything is working and working so far. ” V. Janulevičius commented on the companies.
V. Janulevičius adds that although the production companies do not work as they did before the global pandemic, the spring was much worse than now.
“In the spring, only 60 per cent. Of all companies, others remained inactive. Today the situation is much better,” says V. Janulevičius.
The president of LPK also points out that there are companies in downtime, now their number is growing little by little. “It is growing because the workers are sick and therefore lack the production capacity to replace them. There are no specialists, then all shifts are eliminated for possible contact with the infected person. Therefore, the stability of production is a bit broken, ”says V. Janulevičius.
However, some sectors do not feel confident about the future, so not all are in a rush to find additional workers.
“The need for workers is still because some of them are isolated or sick. But I would not dare to say that there is still a long-term need for staff. (…) Companies are looking ahead with caution, because they believe that the demand for quarantine may decrease, ”says V. Janulevičius.
Are there jobs, but discrimination forces you to leave?
Recently, there has been a lot of public debate about bringing the missing employees to Lithuania. Some economists say that reducing quotas would have a negative impact, for example, on transport companies, which employ large numbers of third-country nationals. Others argue that foreigners should not be brought in if employers pay Lithuanians higher wages.
According to Sodra, newcomers from third countries (not belonging to the European Union) tend to easily enter the Lithuanian labor market. “In recent years, employees from abroad have successfully complemented the Lithuanian labor market; their number has grown steadily and reached 25.7 thousand at the beginning of this year. – double that at the beginning of 2018.
We see that during the quarantine period, restrictions on the entry of foreigners into Lithuania and the cooling of the labor market have reduced the number of foreign workers from third countries, ”says Kristina Zitikytė, advisor to the Statistics Analysis and Forecasting Division of Sodra.
Sodra also reports that Lithuania lost nearly 5,000 foreigners working here this fall alone. This is most likely due to the lower earnings of those who work: in some occupations, wages fell by as much as 38%, while the wages of Lithuanians working the same job increased by at least a tenth.
“In Lithuania, drivers, welders, concrete mixers, plasterers, bricklayers, builders, cooks, car and taxi drivers and drivers from third countries worked mainly on heavy trucks and other freight transport.
(…) Only the income analysis of highly qualified specialists, such as software specialists or systems analysts, shows that foreigners are paid similarly to Lithuanian specialists, but there are only a few working in these fields ”, Sodra notes in a press release. .
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