The majority of the unemployed are with upper secondary vocational education and over the age of 50, which shows that these people have been in the labour market for a long time with long-acquired skills and have reached a breaking point when they have ceased being sufficient or relevant in today’s labour market, said Director of Latvian State Employment Agency (NVA) Evita Simsone in an interview to LTV programme Rīta panorāma.
She explained that the biggest challenge in Latvia’s labour market is meeting employers’ requirements and the available work force. Simsone also stressed that changes are underway and the gap is slowly narrowing, but not as quickly as the labour market demands it.
She stressed that one of NVA’s current priorities is helping the people who are active on the labour market but have a high risk of falling out of it. She stressed that training is available, adding that sometimes it is difficult to fill a class, because of low interest.
Simsone said the unemployment level went down in all of Latvia’ regions, but the most rapidly in Latgale, which usually has the highest unemployment level. The unemployment level in Riga remains the lowest. At the same time, there is the largest number of vacancies in the capital city.
In the Riga region, there is demand for low- or medium-skilled workers, but there are very few of them in the region. There are more of them in Latgale, according to the director of NVA. At the same time, in these positions, the remuneration is in the amount of the minimum wage or slightly above it. It is therefore essential for citizens that their job is close to the place of residence, since the additional costs of accepting a job away from the place of residence are disproportionate to the benefits.
Talking about other topics, the Director of NVA said that earlier this year, two collective redundancy notices were received from companies. This could affect a total of 55 employees.
LETA previously reported that the data of the Central Statistical Bureau show that at the end of last year the actual unemployment rate in Latvia comprised 6.8%, which is an increase of 0.2 percentage points compared to the end of the previous month.
In December 2024, there were 64 100 unemployed in Latvia, which is 1 400 more than in November, but 2 500 less than in December 2023.