Pabedinskienė speech at 25 BSPC

Speech of the Minister of Social Security and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania Algimanta Pabedinskienė25th Baltic Sea Parliamentary ConferenceSession three on the topic “Realizing employment opportunities – Improving labour mobility and combating youth unemployment”Dear Colleagues and Participants of the Conference,First of all, I would like to thank the hosts of this event for inviting us to participate in the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. It is always nice to visit our neighbours and good friends. To talk and discuss the topics that are relevant to all and to seek decisions on common challenges.Well-balanced youth mobility is a good measure helping the labour market to match demand and supply. Therefore, on the one hand, it is good to know that mobility of 24-29 year old persons within the European Union is one of the biggest compared to other age groups. This contributes to eradicating unemployment in general in the EU and helps to fill job vacancies in other countries. Yet, on the other hand, some of the Member States, including Lithuania, may experience additional difficulties. The negative overall net migration balance in Lithuania not only presents challenges to the labour market but also threatens the sustainability of the entire social system. Therefore, please allow me to start my speech with an overview of the overall situation in Lithuania.Lithuania’s emigration rates per 1,000 inhabitants are one of the highest in the European Union. Since 2004 the net migration has been negative and accounts for approximately 370 thousand. In 2015, compared to 2014, the emigration rate increased again, and immigration slightly decreased.Research shows that labour force emigrating from Lithuania are usually low-qualified or hold average qualifications, most of them before leaving the country did not have a job for a year or longer. Certainly, in parallel to the low-qualified labour force emigration, the so-called brain drain process is also observed in Lithuania, where high-qualified specialists or those that potentially may become high-qualified specialists leave the country.This kind of situation is very worrying. Therefore, the Government is putting a lot of effort to change it. In my personal view, people will be unwilling to leave or they will be willing to come back after leaving their country only if they are offered all necessary conditions to work, earn for living and live with dignity.To do this, first of all, legal conditions have to be created which correspond with the reality and contemporary life. Therefore, we have prepared a social model in which we try to ensure flexicurity. A number of legislative acts have already been adopted. And I believe that in the nearest future an essential legislative act – the Labour Code – will be adopted too. Its amendments will create conditions for more flexible and modern regulation of industrial relations meeting the needs of both business and employees. The provisions of the Labour Code include: a greater variety of employment contracts, greater flexibility for work and life balance, simpler procedures of employment and dismissal of employees. All of it will increase Lithuania’s competitiveness and economic development and will encourage the creation of jobs in a number of sectors.The second very important step is that this year the Government has approved an overall plan to reduce emigration. This plan includes all the areas and aims designed for removing essential social, economic and other reasons behind emigration. It foresees not only reduction of emigration but also encouraging returning back the Lithuanians that have already emigrated.This plan also includes measures encouraging not only immigration of non EU citizens but also third country nationals into Lithuania. To this end, we want to facilitate the migration procedures so that the specialists that the labour market of Lithuania lacks could easier come to the country. We are convinced that openness to new talents will offer a number of opportunities to Lithuania and allow it to become an active and competitive country which is open to innovations and creativity.The third step is common actions of countries. Thus we have to encourage a well-balanced movement of EU citizens within the EU while also facilitating the immigration of the high-qualified third country employees to EU.I think that the EU’s ability to react to the current and increasing demand of high-skilled third country nationals in an effective and rapid way and to compensate for the lack of skills needs to be improved. Therefore, Lithuania approves of EU initiatives which encourage the immigration of high-skilled specialists from third countries. They will help increase the competitiveness of EU economy and might have a positive influence on the demographic situation. Yet, at the same time it is very important that new regulations do not create opportunities to misuse them.I also think that at the EU level we should encourage not only the mobility of citizens when a person decides to live and work in another EU country. But we should also ensure that citizens or companies could easily provide services in other countries. Thus, the posting of EU citizens to work in other countries could contribute to well-balanced migration. In the meantime, any additional restrictions to provide services for other countries both at national or EU level could further encourage emigration from some EU member states.To summarize, one could say that the process of migration has a positive and negative aspect. On the one hand, education and knowledge obtained abroad, returning income, investment, cross-cultural life and work experience, knowledge of foreign languages influence the development of the country, its economic growth and improves life conditions. On the other hand, Lithuania, as a small country, is concerned about its decreasing population and the extent of emigration as this means the decrease of Lithuania’s intellectual potential, loss of investment into people, the deceleration of technological advance and the development of science and economy, the lack of labour force in certain sectors of economy.Therefore, as it was already mentioned, conditions have to be created for people to work, earn and live with dignity. Primarily, we have to create such conditions for our youth, who are our future and strength. Hence I will finish this presentation with brief information on what we have managed to do trying to fight youth unemployment.I am glad that having completed a lot of work, youth unemployment in Lithuania was successfully reduced by more than half. Back in 2010 youth unemployment in Lithuania was one of the biggest in the EU and accounted for 35.7%, whereas at the beginning of this year it was 13.6%, which is below the EU average (19.4%). This progress was achieved from the moment when youth unemployment has been declared and still is regarded as one of the top priorities of Lithuania.Before undertaking actions we first of all identified major youth unemployment problems: skills mismatch between labour market and education; lack of qualification and work skills; discrepancy between labour supply and the expectations of youth; lack of measures for combining work, education and family life.Having identified the problems and having taken them into consideration, we created a Youth Guarantee Mechanism which we have been using until today. Certainly, we constantly make necessary adjustments to better meet the needs of youth and the changing situation in the labour market.In 2016 we set new objectives for us. First of all, to ensure high quality implementation of the projects of Youth Employment Initiative, in which all young persons may participate.In the project of primary intervention “Atrask save” (“Discover Yourself”) we provide the initial assistance to young persons to help them to be more self-confident and able to find out about the opportunities of employment, education or starting a business. We help them to develop additional abilities and competences, provide psychological rehabilitation measures, create opportunities for internships, mediate in relations with educational establishments and help to return back to education, involve them into activities that are useful for society and encourage engagement in voluntary activities.Part of the project helps to better integrate inactive youth. To identify inactive young citizens and to provide them with necessary assistance, we have established a network of 57 youth organizations and organizations that are working with youth. These organizations work with inactive youth on the streets, also reaching them in the places where they spend most of their time: in parks, supermarkets and so on. This helps to establish a personal relation with a young person and gain confidence.Another project “A New Start” ensures secondary intervention which is meant first of all for the youth which did not succeed in getting an offer in the open market after the initial intervention. This project primarily helps to obtain a qualification through participation in vocational training and get support for the acquisition of work skills. The measures are applied in a complex way, thereby ensuring maximum support necessary for sustainable integration in the labour market.We are also continuing the implementation of the already tested measures that have justified themselves, helping young persons to undertake a business or to acquire job skills. We provide loans to start-ups, consult businessmen on the preparation of business plans and their implementation. Employers that employ young persons without work experience are compensated part of a wage paid to a young person employed for the first time.In the future, we are going to proceed with investment and improvement of the employment system and increase its effectiveness in the areas of employee training and competence building. This is essential to ensure that we keep pace with the changing world, provide timely professional assistance, analyse individual needs and opportunities of each person.Thank you for your attention.