Lithuania needs to tackle skills shortages – IMF

The IMF has said Lithuania needs to tackle skills shortages and mismatches between training and education and the demands of the market to drive economic growth and development.

“Skills’ mismatch and skills’ shortages in Lithuania are high and the country would benefit from more active labor market policies that would address the issue of skills’ mismatches and shortages,” said the IMF economist Jiri Podpiera, from the IMF‘s Europe department.

He said working age populations were projected to continue to decline across Eastern and Central Europe with emigration and an aging population and to deal with those negative demographic trends new labour market policies would be needed to increase the supply of labour.

The Baltic States have the aim of increasing labour market participation in the years to 2020 in line with European Union policies, Podpiera said.

The IMF were presenting their spring report on Central, Eastern and Southeastern European economies and Podpiera said the problem of lack of labour supply in Lithuania could in part be tackled by improving the quality of the labour force and better matching training and education with the needs of the marketplace.