The Lithuanian government is significantly cutting the quota of migrant workers from non-EU countries that businesses can bring in. The minister of social security and labour says priority should be on employing locals.
Minister Vytautas Šilinskas said that the quota of 24,830 third-country workers for 2025 is set according to the labour market situation.
“We can see that unemployment in Lithuania is around 7 percent, 150,000, maybe a little more people are not working. [...] If not all, but at least 100,000 of the people who are looking for a job were employed, there would be 100 million euros in wage income every month,” the outgoing minister told LRT RADIO on Friday.
“We believe that the first priority should be the employment of Lithuanians. In Kalvarija and Ignalina, where unemployment is over 12 percent, we can certainly bring people from there, and it is not necessary to bring people from Central Asia, which is the most popular region at the moment,” Šilinskas said.
The decree drafted by the Social Security and Labour Ministry proposes to admit 24,830 non-EU nationals to work in 2025, down from the current quota of about 40,000.
Lithuanian logistics companies have already said they will move their operations to neighbouring countries because of the low quota. The International Transport and Logistics Alliance (TTLA) proposes a maximum quota of around 40,000.
According to the organisation, allowing an additional 15,000 workers would result in carriers paying 112 million euros more in taxes in 2025.
Until now, the 40,000 annual quota has been used to bring in workers under preferential conditions.
But the Lithuanian parliament, Seimas, has decided to set a stricter limit. The annual quota for third-country workers cannot exceed 1.4 percent of Lithuania’s permanent population.
However, the quota of 24,830 for 2025 would be equal to 0.9 percent of the population.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
