The city, Estonia's third-largest, is home to 38 percent of the county's population, but 45 percent of the county's unemployed live there, ERR radio reported.

Seasonal work may help bring numbers down in the summer, said the Unemployment Insurance Fund's Ida-Viru department director Maie Metsalu, but no breakthrough is expected.

Companies that need workers are close by, but on the wrong side of the river, in Russia, such as an automotive parts manufacturer in Ivangorod that could hire 400.

Metsalu says unemployment is particularly high among women, due to layoffs from the now defunct Kreenholm textile plant.

Less than 10 percent of the company's former employees have found a new job, and about 15 percent are learning a new trade. Most hope that the company will come back.

"In a certain sense they're clinging to the old," said Metsalu.

A typical jobless Narva resident wants to find work in their hometown, says Metsalu. The Unemployment Insurance Fund is offering 30 jobs. The most common positions are seamstresses, salespeople and shrimp peelers.

Kristopher Rikken