Around 1,800 prisoners are currently serving their sentences in Estonian prisons. Unless a prisoner is a student or a pensioner, he or she is obliged by law to work.

However, as the average prison sentence has been reduced to 1.6 years, many of the trades taught in prison are no longer suitable for everyone. For this reason, the Prison Employment Center has begun to update the list of jobs.

For example, it takes a prisoner one year plus an apprenticeship to become a welder, so it is not suitable for more than half of the prisoners.

"Prison inmate numbers are falling, sentences are getting shorter, and we're looking for easier jobs that don't require as much training as, say, welding," Elgo Pehk, the head of the Prison Employment Center, said.

"We're looking for easier jobs that don't require a lot of training, such as packaging, laundry, maybe sewing simple items, bed linen," he said.

Prison work is divided into two parts: one part does household work such as cleaning, cooking and repairs, while the other part is employed in industry, where the prisoners' employers are various Estonian companies.

"The current wage for inmates doing household work is €0.74. By law, they must be paid 10 percent of the minimum wage. In industry, wages vary, depending on the work and who can do how much, the hourly rate can go up to about €3," Pehk said.

"If an inmate has debts, 50 percent of his or her pay will be used to pay off outstanding debts, 20 percent will go to the release fund, and 30 percent will go to the inmate," he said.

The sewing factory in Tallinn Prison makes bed linen for the defense forces. It also makes uniforms for the medical staff.

The prison industry also has a long-standing cooperation with the State Forest Management Center (RMK). For example, prisoners make the campfire pits that are so popular with hikers.

"We have ordered a very large number of these covered campsites from them over the years, and all of the 400 or so that are in the wild today were built there," Marge Rammo, the head of visitor management department at RMK.

Estonia's three prison industries currently employ an average of 140 inmates per month, but there are plans to double capacity.

According to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (Töötukassa), there is a shortage of physically demanding workers in Estonia, especially in the agriculture, forestry, construction and energy sectors.

"In these industries, companies rely heavily on foreign workers, especially short-term workers," Katrin Liivamets, head of the jobseeker and employer services department at Töötukassa, said.

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