Analytics, Employment, Estonia

Chairman of the Parliamentary committee Urmas Reinsalu stated that the committee is planning to tackle these issues in near future together with representatives of different institutions. He added that the committee is also planning to meet with the minister of economic affairs and communications Juhan Parts in order to discuss the trends on the labour market in connection with the developments in the business sector.

Minister of social affairs Hanno Pevkur stated to committee members that in future, the ministry would like to pay more attention on providing training courses and supplementary training to unemployed persons; the ministry is planning to request 400 million kroons more in funding from the Ministry of Finance on the basis of the fact that there is great demand for the training services and thus far the State has not been able to accommodate the wishes of all applicants in this respect. MPs expressed their support to that request.

Pille Liimal, a member of the management board of the Unemployment Insurance Fund, stated that the unemployment rate is on the declining trend. According to most recent data, there are 76,718 unemployed persons registered in Estonia and the unemployment rate is 11.8 per cent. She stated that in most cases (53 per cent) people terminate their registered unemployment status due to finding employment. In 36 per cent of the cases, the unemployed status is terminated because the person involved has not contacted the Unemployment Insurance Fund in due course and in 12 per cent of cases for other reasons.

Both Pevkur and Liimal stated that it is very difficult to assess, how many of the unemployed persons have been without work long-term or how many of the estimated unemployed persons have actually found employment as people may go to work in other countries or not inform the authorities that they have taken up work.