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With 59,500 currently registered with the State Employment Agency as unemployed, the rate of registered unemployment in Latvia now stands at 6.4%. Zvidrina said that the share of disabled persons among the unemployed has grown in recent years and people aged over 50 make up 40% of the jobless population. Furthermore, 30% of the unemployed, most of them low-skilled workers, have been out of work for more than a year.

Meanwhile, the number of job vacancies registered at the State Employment Agency has doubled over the past year to 19,500, Zvidrina said. The Welfare Ministry’s official noted that labor shortages are the severest in Riga where only 34% of job vacancies are filled within a month, while in 66% of cases hiring the necessary employees takes longer than a month. The highest demand for workforce has been registered in construction, manufacturing, retail and wholesale, as well as transport.

There are still many job vacancies for low-skilled labor, as employees are looking for auxiliary workers, cleaners and other doers of menial jobs.

Asked if guest workers might help fill the numerous vacant jobs, Zvidrina said that first it is necessary to focus on the local labor force and its maximal involvement in the labor market. “We still have our own reserves we can offer jobs to,” the ministry official said.

Statistics show, however, that the number of guest workers in Latvia is growing. The number of valid work permits has grown from 3,596 at the beginning of 2016 to 4,400 at the beginning of 2017, to 5,446 at the beginning of 2018. Most of the guest workers are employed in the transportation sector and manufacturing. The guest workers come from countries like Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, as well as India, the Philippines and China.