Analytics, Labour-market, Latvia, Markets and Companies

Today, the American Chamber of Commerce in Latvia (AmCham) held a launch of its position on talent attraction “Latvia – a career destination”.

Based on the results of AmCham members’ survey, the position focuses on two main priorities: promoting Latvia as an attractive career destination for both domestic and international talent and developing skills to reduce mismatch in the labor market.

AmCham believes Latvian companies can benefit from hiring international talent, which would be well-fit to explore foreign markets thanks to their language skills, business knowledge and intercultural abilities. We therefore suggest creating a comprehensive strategy and website for talent attraction as it will contribute to making high-skilled international and return migrant employees feel welcome in Latvia.

Proposed solutions for filling vacancies in the near-term include streamlining and digitalization of immigration procedures for high-skilled labor and business visitors, retraining and upskilling domestic workforce and attracting Latvian return migrants. Based on forecasts, state should direct investments to those education programs that encourage the acquiring of the needed skills. A more precise forecast of the future skills should be facilitated to ensure a closer fit between supply and demand. Incentivizing companies to invest in innovation would help them increase their activity the country and expand the number of higher value added jobs.

AmCham urges all stakeholders to engage in a dialogue and work together to address these complex issues.

During the launch event, a discussion about the labor availability and quality took place with the participation of Ralfs Nemiro,  Minister of Economy; Kim Leandersson, Head of Riga Center of Cognizant and Renāte Strazdina, Country Manager Baltics of Microsoft.

AmCham President Ingrida Karina-Berzina introduced the main recommendations stemming from the AmCham Labor survey  and moderated the panel discussion. Key findings from the survey were presented by Ricards Krizanovskis, Representative of ERDA and representative of the AmCham Labor Force working group.

Read the executive summary
Read the position paper on talent attraction

AmCham speaks on behalf of more than 150 leading U.S. and international companies in Latvia. AmCham is committed to fostering trade, investment, partnership and friendship between the U.S and Latvia and it serves as a business, knowledge, networking and policy forum for its members and partners. AmCham’s actions are grounded in four core values: integrity, responsibility, cooperation and excellence.