The problem of the Latvian labor market is not lazy youth. The problem is much more serious - there are simply too few young people, and some professions seem unattractive to them, while others are already beginning to be displaced by technology.
While employers complain about a shortage of employees, young people are looking for jobs that are meaningful, well-paid, and aligned with their values. In this clash of expectations and reality, the labor market of the future is being formed, where the main question is no longer what a young person wants to do, but whether there will be a place for them and how to stay there. Will there be people in the future who know how to drive a tractor, solder wires, and install toilets?
While employers are convinced that the economy will force workers to choose professions that require physical labor, the future workforce is entering the game with its own rules.
In the new LETA podcast "What Was That Even?!" Vineta Leonchika, director of the development and analytics department of the State Employment Agency, Andris Bite, president of the Latvian Confederation of Employers, and Kaspars Skotans, a representative of the recruitment company "Alma Career Latvia," discuss what the future labor market might look like, where modernization, generational change, and labor shortages will collide.
Latvia is aging. Europe is aging. And this trend is not abstract - it can be accurately calculated for years to come. How many young people will enter the labor market in ten years? How many in twenty? The answers are not optimistic, and all three experts acknowledged this almost unanimously.
"Everything is fine with the youngest people," Bite said. "They are active, capable. But there is a big problem - there are too few of these young people for us to ensure the stability of the labor market in Latvia in the future."
"It is all the more important that the moment of career choice is as meaningful and effective as possible, so that young people find their place and feel stable there," Leonchika added.
If every young person is valued like never before, then every wrong decision about choosing a profession is a greater loss for society. Bite described the situation as "quite painful." The demand for labor exceeds the supply, and there are several reasons for this. The first is obvious - demographics. The second is the education system, which for years has been unable to prepare enough of the specialists that are truly lacking in the economy. This is especially painful in STEM fields.
"The shortage of specialists with STEM knowledge is enormous, and this cannot be changed in one day or one month," Bite says.
And even more unpleasantly - there is no intensive work to quickly change the situation.
The third reason is the caution of companies. While development used to mean new jobs, now some enterprises think differently, and the courage to develop is diminishing.
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