Assessment and recommendations

Lithuanian youth (aged 15-24) were hit hard by the global economic and financial crisis, with the unemployment rate increasing sharply and peaking to over 35% in 2010. Despite notable signs of progress, at 16.7% (in Q2 2015) the unemployment rate continues to be higher than it was at the beginning of the crisis (around 10%) and there are signs of building labour markets pressures, fuelled by long-standing challenges. These are manifest in a fundamental problem of poor quality of jobs, which means that many youth are trapped in low-paid, informal jobs, which prevent them from developing and fully utilising their skills and capacities. There is a link between these tensions and the market propensity of Lithuanian youth to look for better job opportunities abroad and migrate.