Swedbank Says Employment Structure Could Be Improved
Swedbank's latest report on the Baltic Sea region warns that Estonia has unsolved problems on the labor front, even as overall unemployment drops.
According to the annual Baltic Sea Report released on October 19, long-term unemployment is growing while some sectors suffer from a workforce shortage, partially due to emigration but also because the educational system has been too slow to change.
The bank said it could hurt growth and result in escalating wages with employers outbidding each other for the limited supply of specialists.
In the same report, the bank increased projections for this year's economic growth to 7.6 percent for Estonia - more than double that of the region's 3.2 percent growth - and said next year's figure should be 3.2 percent (2.6 percent for the region), saying that it foresees no major crisis on either the international or local level. It said the Baltics should fare better than Poland, Germany and the Nordics in any case.
Kristopher Rikken