The actual unemployment level in Latvia has decreased to 7.3%, or by 0.1% MoM. At the same time, the competition to find suitable employees is on a rise among employers, the director of Latvia’s State Employment Agency (NVA) Evita Simsone said.
She said the situation was rather stable and typical for Latvia’s labor market. Currently there are less than 66,000 unemployed people registered with NVA. The number of vacancies registered with NVA usually increases in summer and the start of autumn – there are already more than 20,000 vacancies registered with the agency. However, competition for employees is on a rise among employers.
“Of course there is some influence from the Covid-19 crisis, but it is not as strong to warrant any serious concerns. We can compare this period of time to the crisis of 2008 even though the influence is mostly observed for certain sectors – tourism, catering and accommodation. None of the these sectors have recovered to the level observed before Covid-19 crisis,” adds Simsone.
As a positive Simsone mentioned the tendency observed in other crises has yet to repeat itself. This tendency is when NVA receives collective lay-off applications due to the Covid-19 crisis or the tax policy changes that came to force in July. She notes the situation is under monitoring, adding that it will be possible to tell the effect on tax changes on employment once some time has passed.
She also adds that for a long time the most problematic issue for Latvia’s labour market has been the regional differences – economic activity within one country’s territory, unemployment levels are in another and residents’ mobility is generally low.
Answering the question if Covid-19 could increase the number of jobs possible to do remotely, Simsone said there were very few such vacancies for which employers had stated they could be performed remotely. Such jobs account for only about 1% of all registered vacancies. Nevertheless, this number is on a rise. (BNN/Business World Magazine)
