Analytics, Employment, Latvia, Markets and Companies

At the moment, 80,497 persons are registered with the Employment Agency as unemployed, which is 70 persons less than this past May.

The unemployment rate for Riga region remains unchanged at 5.3%, and in Vidzeme at 9.4%. Unemployment in Latgale has reduced 0.2 percentage points from May to 18.7% in June, and unemployment in Zemgale has decreased 0.3 percentage points to 8.2%.

In Kurzeme, on the other hand, the registered unemployment level increased 0.5 percentage points to 10.8%.

According to the Employment Agency's data, there are 1,498 unemployed whose last jobs were in the fish canning industry. The majority of them, 855 lost their jobs in June, and more than half of these unemployed are residents of Kurzeme, which partly explains the increase in the unemployment rate for Kurzeme.

As reported, the Russian food safety supervising board "Rosselkhoznadzor" announced that as of June 4, fish and fish product imports from Latvia and Estonia were banned due to the supposedly excessive amounts of benzopyrene in Latvian and Estonian sprats.

On June 10, fish processing company A3 in Engure Region's Smarde announced halting its operations and laying off all workers. On June 8, Liepaja fish cannery Kolumbija halted production. The company laid off 225 of its 300 employees, according to Latvian Television.