Lack of skills remains Lithuanian labour market’s biggest weakness

With many Nordic companies moving their service centres to the Baltics, speaking a Scandinavian language is also a highly marketable skill, says Gerda Baltrūnaitė of the HR company Manpower.

“The demand for sales managers, representatives and managing staff has been growing every month since the beginning of the year. Moreover, there’s a great need for customer service specialists by service centres. They are hiring specialists who speak Western European, Scandinavian languages,” Baltrūnaitė tells 15min.lt.

She adds that Scandinavian companies are happy with the performance of their Lithuanian employees, so more may move some of their operations across the Baltic Sea in the future.

However, the bulk of Lithuania’s labour force remains low-skilled.

“It is not a secret that most of the working people in Lithuania are unskilled workers: employees of factories, warehouses, logistics,” Baltrūnaitė adds.

While professionals have seen their salaries rise due to growing demand of their skills, unskilled workers have also enjoyed better wages due to increases to the minimum wage.