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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Thursday, 28.03.2024, 09:52

British Ambassador: Latvia loses talented, skilled people

BC, Riga, 09.12.2015.Print version
The vast waves of migration over the past ten years have put pressure on the British labor market and social security system and this isn't good also for countries like Latvia which are losing talented and skilled workers, British Ambassador to Latvia Sarah Cowley said in the interview with LETA.

She said that thousands and thousands of people from within the Europe had moved to the UK in search of jobs over the past ten years. “The majority of those people are working and contributing to the British economy but due to the nature of the benefit system many of these people are able to claim benefits even when they are in work, if they are at the low-end of the income scale,” the British ambassador said.

 

"That's skewing the labor market,” she said. People are being attracted to the UK to do jobs that they would earn less than in many other European countries doing because they get these top-up benefits, and that obviously puts pressure on the social security system in the UK, the ambassador said.

 

It also causes problem in countries like Latvia, which start to lose some of very skilled workers who may go to the UK and make more money working in a relatively unskilled job that they would working in a skilled job in Latvia, Cowley said.

 

“I've spoken to Latvians in the UK who are very well qualified, with university degrees, working bars in London. I'm not saying that that's not their decision to make but I'm saying that that's not good thing for Latvia. You are losing some of your talented, skilled people who are then working in relatively unskilled jobs in the UK. You need your people here to drive the economic growth in Latvia,” the ambassador said.

 






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