“Small-sized businesses find the existing hiring process as excessively complicated, however, amid the growing lack of employees the hiring of foreigners is becoming more relevant for small- and medium-sized companies. However, difficulties to hire foreigners create an environment to bypass them and move the operations to the shadow. Then we end up in a situation where citizens of third countries start working in Lithuania after receiving Schengen visas in Polish tourism agencies and permits to work in Poland,” said Gytis Morkūnas, the head of the Entrepreneurship Department at the governmental investment promotion agency Enterprise Lithuania.
According to data provided by the State Labour Inspectorate, Ukrainians made 47 of the 60 unlawful foreign workers busted last year, which accounts for nearly 80 percent of all unlawful foreign employment. Out of the 90 illegal workers from abroad busted this year, citizens of Ukraine made 70 percent. Nearly all of the Ukrainians were busted in the construction sector.