Contribution to EIRO thematic feature on Youth and work - case of Lithuania
Published: 4 March 2007
The main youth law - Law on Youth Policy Framework [1] (LYPF) - adopted in 2003, internalised youth policy as one of the fields of national policy. The Law enshrines basic definitions of youth policy, principles of the implementation of the policy and fields of the implementation of youth policy. The Law defines state and municipal institutions and agencies, implementing youth policy. On November 2005, the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas, LRS [2]) adopted the Law on the Amendment of the LYPF, which better defines functional distribution of state institutions and organisations, and enshrines the Department for Youth Affairs at the Ministry of Social Security and Labour (Socialinės apsaugos ir darbo ministerija, SADM [3]) as the main institution for implementation of measures of national youth policy.[1] http://www3.lrs.lt/cgi-bin/preps2?Condition1=245497&Condition2=[2] http://www.lrs.lt/[3] http://www.socmin.lt/
Disclaimer: This information is made available as a service to the public but has not been edited or approved by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. The content is the responsibility of the authors.
1. Regulatory framework
The main youth law - Law on Youth Policy Framework (LYPF) - adopted in 2003, internalised youth policy as one of the fields of national policy. The Law enshrines basic definitions of youth policy, principles of the implementation of the policy and fields of the implementation of youth policy. The Law defines state and municipal institutions and agencies, implementing youth policy. On November 2005, the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas, LRS) adopted the Law on the Amendment of the LYPF, which better defines functional distribution of state institutions and organisations, and enshrines the Department for Youth Affairs at the Ministry of Social Security and Labour (Socialinės apsaugos ir darbo ministerija, SADM) as the main institution for implementation of measures of national youth policy.
Lithuanian laws contain no definition of “a young worker”. LYPF contains the definition of “a young person”, which covers individuals from 14 to 29 years old.
Law on safety and health at work (LSHW) uses the definition of “a young person”, whereby persons under 18 are considered young persons. Such persons are provided with additional safety guarantees at work. According LSHW work by children (under 16 years) in Lithuania shall be prohibited, except light work that suits the child’s physical capabilities and does not harm their safety, health, physical, mental, moral or social development, and in compliance with the conditions of employment laid down by the Government. Every employer should guarantee young people working conditions appropriate to their age. They shall ensure that young people are protected against any work likely to harm their safety, health, physical or mental development or to jeopardise their education.
When employing a young person under 18 years of age and ensuring safe and healthy working conditions for him, the employer’s representative shall act in compliance with the procedure for employing young persons under 18 years of age, surveillance of their health and establishing their possibilities to work concrete work, approved by the Government, work period, the list of works which the young persons are prohibited to work, as well as the factors hazardous, dangerous to health.
The following shorter working time shall be established for young people:
• for adolescents - not more than 8 hours a day counting the daily duration of lessons as working time and not more than 40 hours a week counting the weekly duration of lessons as working time;
• for children performing light work - two hours on a school day and 12 hours a week for work performed in term-time outside the hours fixed for school attendance, or seven hours a day and 35 hours a week for work performed during a period of at least a week when school is not operating (these limits may be raised to eight hours a day and 40 hours a week in the case of children who have reached the age of 15).
Law on Support of the Unemployed does not contain the definition of a young worker or a young unemployed individual either, but it provides for additional support to individuals from 16 to 25, who start their employment activities for the first time.
2. National Programmes on Youth employment
Youth unemployment rate in Lithuania is permanently decreasing, however this does not have positive effect on youth employment level - it is decreasing since 1999 as well (see Table 1). Main reasons of such a situation are relatively high numbers of youth in education and the sharp increase of youth emigration processes that particularly accelerated after Lithuania joined the EU. Therefore main issues currently discussed by social partners in Lithuania are not related to the unemployment of youth, but more to the youth emigration issues.
| Indicator | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 |
| Employment rate | 30,6 | 25,4 | 22,5 | 23,6 | 22,6 | 20,3 |
| Men | 33,3 | 28,4 | 23,8 | 26,5 | 26,3 | 23,9 |
| Women | 27,8 | 22,2 | 21,1 | 20,6 | 18,6 | 16,6 |
| Unemployment rate | 27,2 | 30,0 | 31,1 | 23,0 | 24,8 | 22,5 |
| Men | 29,5 | 31,9 | 36,1 | 23,1 | 22,5 | 22,3 |
| Women | 24,1 | 27,4 | 24,1 | 22,9 | 28,1 | 22,7 |
| Youth in education (% of 15-24 population) | 59,4 | 62,2 | 64,7 | 68,1 | 71,1 | 72,6 |
However a number of policies dealing with youth transition from education to employment is developed in Lithuania:
in order to assist early school leavers to return to the education system the network of youth school has been established since 1993; the positions of social pedagogues (teachers) were set up in general education schools;
in order to increase the correspondence of vocational education and training (VET) to the labour market needs, final assessment of qualifications gained within the initial VET institutions has been transferred to social partners (regional Chambers of Industry, Commerce and Crafts (Prekybos, pramonės ir amatų rūmai), and Chambers of Agriculture (Žemės ūkio rūmai));
in 2003 the Open Information, Counselling and Guidance System (OICGS) was created. The OICGS website provides educational, labour market and statistical information on students in higher and vocational schools, on admission numbers, numbers of the unemployed and job vacancies according to study programmes and regions;
seeking to adapt education and training system to the labour market needs, sectoral studies are conducted to evaluate the training needs, including assessment of skills for the next 5 years. Ministry of Education and Science (Švietimo ir moklso ministerija, ŠMM) every year carries out a research on the demand of high-qualified specialists on the labour market and graduates competences’ correspondence to the labour market needs;
the Law on Support of the Unemployed as well as other legislation provide for additional employment guarantees to young (16-25) individuals, i.e. special employment programmes, priority to participate in vocational training of the labour market, to get supported jobs and to participate in other labour market policy measures;
a website of the Lithuanian Labour Exchange (Lietuvos darbo birža, LDB) places a special database - the bank of talents - designated for young individuals;
the network of Youth Employment Centres was created. At the end of 2004 there were 6 centres of such a type operating in Lithuania;
etc.
Though there are quite many measures provided for in Lithuania with regard to primary and vocational education and training (see above), there are very few measures encouraging employment of young individuals from the employer’s side, i.e., employers’ concernment to employ young individuals who are often underexperienced and underskilled. There are no special tax privileges, lesser social guarantees (e.g., lower minimum wage), etc. provided for young individuals.
3. Role and views of the social partners on Youth at work
As we have mentioned before, in Lithuania basic youth policy measures are aimed at primary and vocational education of young persons as well as at the active labour market policy measures, provided by the LDB. However there is a lack of measures designed for youth at work. This commentary is attributable both in respect of the national youth policy in its broad sense and national social partners’ organisations.
The principal role of employers in implementation of the youth policy in Lithuania is related to involvement thereof in the process of vocational education and training in one or another way. Central Lithuanian employers’ organisations interviewed by us - Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists (Lietuvos pramoninkų konfederacija, LPK) and Lithuanian Confederation of Business Employers (Lietuvos verslo darbdavių konfederacija, LVDK) - pointed out that they are not implementing any targeted youth (young entrepreneurs) policy. Despite some organisations/associations established in some regions of the country to promote self-employment of young individuals, employers are not carrying any activities of this type on national level.
Contrary to the employers’ organisations, youth centres or units are established in all three central Lithuanian trade union organisations. Though having small powers, the mentioned centres try to share in tackling of employment/unemployment problems relevant to young individuals and initiate public campaigns intended to attract attention to social youth problems. However, their efforts are rather amateurish and enlightening in nature.
4. Discussions and research
Central institutes where social partners are discussing the ways to tackle the issue of youth unemployment are the aforesaid youth employment centres. In addition, there are councils established at the mentioned centres. Representatives of the social partners are among the members of these councils. Unfortunately, though deliberating upon certain youth employment problems relevant to a particular region, the said councils are not playing somewhat more significant role in the youth employment policy.
State Council for Youth Affairs (Valstybinė jaunimo reikalų taryba, VJRT) periodically orders researches of youth situation in Lithuania. However, the focal attention in these researches is paid not to youth employment/unemployment problems, but rather to analysis of various youth attitudes.
In 2000, the Institute of Labour and Social Research (Darbo ir socialinių tyrimų institutas, DSTI) carried out a research of the youth situation on the Lithuanian labour market and a survey of motivation of the youth registered at the local labour exchanges, territorial mobility and the possibilities for their integration into the labour market. Unfortunately, no more serious researches were carried out in this field later on.
5. Commentary
Despite a number of measures being implemented in Lithuania to address increase of youth employment and reduction of youth unemployment, the absence of a complex approach to the youth employment policy has been the major problem in the Lithuanian youth policy so far. Decision to establish the department for youth affairs at the SADM is expected to change the situation and to create conditions for systematisation of the existing employment policy and ensuring of its singleness. We believe, activation of the social partners and involvement thereof into implementation of the youth policy in Lithuania will also greatly depend on the national policy in this field (Inga Blažienė and Boguslavas Gruževskis, Institute of Labour and Social Research).
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (2007), Contribution to EIRO thematic feature on Youth and work - case of Lithuania, article.
