Regional labour shortages are forcing employers to find new ways of recruiting. Companies are no longer looking for professionals in a specific city, but across the entire Lithuania, and then working to entice them to move. With lower rents and cost of living, regional towns are becoming attractive places to live and work.
Vitalijus Šiukščius used to live and work in Vilnius. Even though he had always dreamed of moving to a smaller and more quiet town, he was happy with his job and did not want to quit.
However, when his employer started to expand and opened another factory in Panevėžys, a town of about 90,000 people 130 kilometres north of Vilnius, Vitalijus was offered to move there. He accepted without hesitation – especially as his salary remained the same, while the cost of living in Panevėžys is much cheaper.
“The biggest advantage is that I don’t have to drive an hour to work and back,” Vitalijus says. “I’m saving an hour of my time that I can use however I want – go to the gym, go somewhere else, it’ great.”
Welding engineer Paulius Šimonėlis works for the same company and has also agreed to move with his family from Vilnius to Panevėžys.
“We pay three times less rent than in Vilnius and we have three times more space, so I think that influenced our decision,” he says.
The company, Arginta Engineering, is based in Vilnius and has recently started operations in Panevėžys. Around 400 employees are needed here, but the company has only found 50 so far.
According to its HR manager Ugnė Jasinskaitė, the shortage has led the company to offer some of its existing employees to relocate. Not only do they keep the same salary, but also get a relocation allowance.
“We give a relocation bonus to help people out, maybe to rent an apartment they need a deposit,” says Jasinskaitė.
Recruitment agencies say that as employers struggle to find workers, companies have started to use a new tactic: in job ads, they no longer list a specific city. They are looking for employees all over Lithuania, hoping to convince them to move.
“The tactic is to target a profession, target a specific position, and then the work begins on how to attract that candidate, what would be important to them, why it would be worth it for them to go, for example, from Kaunas to Vilnius,” says Rita Karavaitienė, marketing manager at CV-Online.
According to Mantas Gudas, vice-president of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists, due to the shortage of workers, regional employers sometimes offer higher salaries than those in the major cities for comparable positions.
In particular, recent university graduates can expect higher pay if they are geographically flexible.
“It is precisely because of this shortage that the idea is to attract a specialist, to train him or her, and to grow a team member. Especially early in your career, it’s really worth thinking about the regions,” he says.
Experts say that this migration of workers between cities and regions is becoming more common. Surveys show that Zarasai District is the least attractive of Lithuania’s municipalities for professionals, with an average salary of 800 euros a month after tax. Meanwhile, Plungė District is emerging as one of the most attractive regions, with salaries rising faster than in Vilnius.
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