BONJOUR L'ESTONIE

Average wage growth to be 6.5% in Estonia in 2012 : Swedbank

Average wage growth to reach 6.5% in Estonia in 2012, taking into consideration that the wage growth in the services sector will accelerate during the second half of the year, Swedbank said in a statement.

Real wage growth is expected to reach 2.3% on average, but slower growth is increasingly more likely due to growing risks regarding higher inflation, writes LETA.

The average monthly gross wage increased by 5% in annual comparison in the second quarter, reaching 900 euros.

Real wage growth, at the same time, slowed from 2.4% in the first quarter to 1.1%, affected by slowing nominal wage growth as well as delay in the inflation deceleration. The largest wage increases were observed in domestic demand related sectors and/or sectors which are affected by qualified labor shortage problems.

Juhan Tere

Average monthly gross wages and salaries increased to 900 euros in Estonia in Q2

According to Statistics Estonia, in the 2nd quarter of 2012, the average monthly gross wages and salaries were 900 euros and increased by 5.0% compared to the 2nd quarter of the previous year. The increase was smaller than in the previous quarters.

Compared to the 2nd quarter of 2011, the irregular bonuses and premiums per employee grew 19.9% and influenced the growth of the average monthly gross wages and salaries by 0.4%age points. The average monthly gross wages and salaries without irregular bonuses and premiums increased 4.6%.

Compared to the same quarter of 2011, the growth of the average gross monthly wages and salaries in the 2nd quarter of 2012 was smaller than in the previous quarters (6.3% growth in the 4th quarter; 6.9% growth in the 1st quarter).

Estonian ministries aim to raise wages above the level of year 2008

The ministers in the Government of Estonia who support the plans to raise wages in their administrative areas have requested a total of more than 82 million euros extra for pay funds from 2013 State budget, writes LETA/Äripäev.

This would raise spending on human resources above the level of the year 2008.

The Ministry of Finance is compiling the 2013 draft State budget and has received additional requests from other ministries for raising their HR spending by a total of 82.2 million euros.

If all requests were to be approved, the State’s human resources spending would amount to more than 650 million euros in 2013, nearly 15% more than in 2012.

In 2008, human resources spending from the State budget amounted to 630 million euros.

Juhan Tere

Estonian Air terminates collective agreement

Estonian Air has terminated a collective agreement with its employees, which CEO Tero Taskila said was dated and did not take the current market situation into account, reported Postimees.

The Airline Pilots Association has been negotiating the terms of a collective agreement with Estonian Air for a year without result. “We have fundamental differences [...] We have not made any steps forward in a year's time,” said association chairman Rauno Menning.

“We want to make a compromise where both sides make concessions. They have presented us with an ultimatum: take it or leave it, this is the market situation. And we won't accept that,” Menning said.

The financially struggling national carrier aims to boost worker efficiency by 15 percent. In other words, pilots need to work more for the same salaries, according to Postimees. The disagreements include but are not limited to salaries and vacation time, the last having been cut significantly by Estonian Air.

Labour shortage in Estonia is starting to hurt economic development

A poll organised by the Estonian Institute of Economic Research revealed that a third of managers of construction and manufacturing companies find that Estonia is suffering from a shortage of qualified labour, writes Postimees Online.

The head of the institute Marje Josing stated that the number of jobs created is currently higher than the number of jobs that are abolished and hence there is a shortage of trained specialists. This problem is most notable in the manufacturing industry and in the construction sector.

Managing director of construction mousse products manufacturer Krimelte Jaan Puusaag noted that in comparison with the crisis period, the number of job-seekers has clearly fallen and hence it is more difficult to find good workers. “Finding a suitable person for some positions could take up to six months,” he noted, referring to the position of a product manager for construction chemicals exports.

Employers note that labour force from abroad could relieve the qualified labour problem in certain areas, but it would not solve the shortcomings in Estonia’s education policy, Reported LETA.

Juhan Tere

Estonian brain drain boon to Finland

Estonia wants to reverse a medical migration trend, which has sent many of its trained health professionals to pursue more lucrative careers in Finland.

Rural areas have been the hardest hit by the brain drain.

The small Baltic country's social affairs minister, Hanno Pevkur, has promised to establish the exact number of Estonian doctors working in Finland by this coming autumn.

"We know, for instance, that in 2010 we approved 163 doctors trained in Estonia. Some of them were Finns who had been trained in Estonia. The statistics don’t show how many of them are Finns," said Tarja Tamminen, a spokesperson for Finnish medical licensing watchdog Valvira.

A recent survey of Estonian medical students found that many were interested in working abroad, particularly in Finland. To counter the trend, the Estonian government is offering young doctors bonuses up to 15,000 euros to practice medicine at home.

Russia eases unemployment in Narva with jobs and cigarettes

It is estimated that about two hundred residents of Narva work in Ivangorod, the Russian border city across the border, while about a thousand residents of Narva are actively visiting Ivangorod and bringing back cheap cigarettes to Estonia for sale.

According to experts, people who on a daily basis travel to Ivangorod bringing back Russian cigarettes into Estonia could earn in average 120 euros a month.

According to official statistics, there are 4,735 unemployed persons in Narva. Without Russia, the figure would be probably over 5,000.

One of the Narva residents who work in Russia is Natalja Bystrova. She works in Yura Corporation RUS, Ivangorod’s largest town, as a personnel specialist. The plant has about 1,500 employees and manufacturers wiring for Korean car makers Hyundai and Kia. Yura has also plants in China, Vietnam, Tunis, Slovakia and Serbia. The plant in Ivangorod was opened in 2010.

Toomas Hõbemägi

Estonia’s posted EU’s fastest growth in employment in Q1

The number of people employed in Estonia inceased 3.2 percent in the first quarter year on year, the highest growth rate in the European Union, according to the EU statistical office Eurostat.

Estonia was followed by Poland and Romania with growth of 2.5% each, as well as Lithuania and Malta at 1.9%.

Employment in Latvia increased by 1.8% in the first quarter of this year when compared to the same period in 2011, which was the sixth largest increase across the European Union.

According to the latest Eurostat data, a total of 222.9 million people were employed in the EU in the first quarter, including 146.1 million in the euro area.

In the EU, employment decreased by 0.1 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, whereas the eurozone recorded a 0.5 percent reduction.

Compared to the fourth quarter of last year, employment in the EU remained the same, and decreased in the eurozone by 0.2 percent.

The largest quarterly increase was registered in Estonia at 1.3 percent, followed by Malta (0.9 percent) and Poland (0.8 percent).

The employment rate in Latvia decreased by 0.7 percent and 0.8 percent in Lithuania.

Toomas Hõbemägi

The human element is here to stay in the HR business

TALLINN - “As I see it, collecting data for a CV (Curriculum Vitae) will become more automated in the future. Perhaps Google will take a leading role in this. Some companies already use Linkedin and Facebook to find candidates for vacant jobs.”
The person speaking is Heikko Gross, marketing director of CV Online, the Estonian company which since 1997 has been active in online recruitment. The first years saw a major expansion into many neighboring countries. Between 1998 and 1999, turnover multiplied 15 times.  

CV Online offers jobseekers CV posting (for free), CV consultation and courses for successful job applications. A single consultation costs eight euros. If you wish to get a good understanding of how to write a good CV, what the main mistakes are and how an employer reads your CV, you may attend a course for 23 euros. “But it is a problem that many job seekers are not willing to pay the price for a course,” says Gross. “It is a question of whether you wish to spend your money buying a fish, or a fishing rod!” His personal experience says that those who are already working and are in a better financial position are generally more willing to spend money on job seeking advice.

Central bank : employees should calm their wage expectations

Estonian central bank Eesti Pank says in its new labour market overview that employees should calm down their over-optimistic wage claims.

Referring to the recent strikes where trade unions demanded higher wages, Eesti Pank economist Natalja Viilmann said that the current economic environemnt was too uncertain to allow excessive wage claims.

She said it could increase inflationary pressure and threaten the economic balance.

The central bank’s latest Labour Market Review reveals that employment soared in comparison with the recent past and also with other European countries.

The labour participation rate posted a record and unemployment declined notably. At the same time, the share of the long-term unemployed among the unemployed increased, making up about 60 percent by the end of 2011.

The inhibition in economic growth at the end of 2011 may increase the share of the long-term unemployed even more in the future.

A quarter of construction workers in Estonia receive unreported wages

TALLINN - After holding extensive raids on 66 construction sites on Tuesday and Wednesday, Estonian Tax and Customs Board stated that nearly a quarter of construction workers in Estonia receive unreported wages, National Broadcasting reports.

A total of 130 state officials asked nearly a 1,000 people who were present at the construction sites whether and how their work relations have been documented.

Nearly 40 people on 14 sites ran away from tax officials during the raid. Tax Board's construction sphere audits manager Rauno Ellermaa said that such fleeing indicates clearly that employers of these people have built their business on tax fraud.

Illegal workers from Bulgaria, Ukraine and Latvia were also ascertained at the sites and the Tax Board informed the corresponding authorities.

Last year, the state was deprived of at last 40 million euros of tax money in the construction sphere. "Over a quarter of construction companies do not comply with their tax obligations properly and there is room for development here," said Tax and Customs board audit department head Kaido Lemendik.

Unemployment up in Q4

In line with the increasingly grave unemployment numbers seen in most of the European economies, Estonia’s unemployment numbers too made an upward swing in the final quarter of 2011, data from Statistics Estonia revealed last week.

According to the data of the Labour Force Survey, the number of persons without a job in this tiny Baltic country in the fourth quarter was 79,000 and the unemployment rate was 11.4%. The estimated number of unemployed persons in the preceding quarter was 77,000 -- increased by 2,000 persons in the final quarter. However the unemployment rate was smaller compared to the corresponding quarter of 2010 when the figure stood at 13.6%. At the end of 2011 the unemployment slightly increased, but the annual average number of unemployed persons still decreased.

In the record year for unemployment, in 2010, the unemployed persons numbered 116,000. The unemployment rate of 12.5% in 2011 was by 4.4% smaller compared to the year before. This was the largest fall of unemployment during the last 20 years.

The unemployment, which during the economic crisis increased more rapidly among men, during the previous year also decreased more among men and the difference between the unemployment rate of men and that of women decreased to the level of earlier years.

The need for Estonian people for help at record level in 9 months

In the first three quarters of last year, the number of people who in Estonia who received subsistence benefits and the amount of money paid for the benefits grew to the highest level in five years, LETA/Postimees writes.

Last year, an average of 14,000 subsistence benefit applications were satisfied in Estonia every month. In the first quarter 47,242 applications for 7.6 million euros, in the second quarter 42,996 applications for 6.2 million euros and in the third quarter 35,410 applications for 4.8 million euros were satisfied.

In the first three quarters of last year, 990 applications more were satisfied than at the same time a year ago, Postimees mediates social ministry statistics.

"In 2009 and 2010, the number of applications surged and last year the number stabilised," said social ministry welfare department senior specialist Marek Atonen.

Atonen pointed out as a positive factor that according to the latest data of 2011, people submitted 2% less subsistence benefit applications than a year earlier but that does not mean a step towards easing of the problem since the number of people with subsistence problems is kept high by the long-term jobless.

"In 2012, major changes in the total number of benefit recipients or the sums is not forecast," said Atonen.

State Duma ratifies Estonian-Russian pension agreement

The Russian State Duma ratified last week the pension insurance cooperation agreement between Estonia and Russia, LETA/National Broadcasting reports, citing State Duma homepage.

Russian healthcare and social development deputy minister Juri Voronin said that the agreement corresponds to the interests of Russia and its co-nationals who live in the Estonian territory.

According to the new pension agreement between the states, concluded in July last year, both states pay pension irrespective of on which country's territory a person lives. Russian military pensioners who have so far received a pension from Russia for serving in the armed forces, have the right to get a pension from Estonia for years worked in Estonia.

The Estonian Riigikogu ratified the agreement in September.

Juhan Tere

Employment in Estonia grew by 8.9% in Q2; largest increase in EU

The number of people employed in Latvia increased by 2.8% in the third quarter this year from the same period of 2010, which was the second largest increase across the European Union, the EU statistical office Eurostat reports. Employment has increased the most in Estonia – 8.9%, Latvia and Sweden – 2.1%, and Lithuania – 2%, writes LETA.

According to the latest Eurostat data, a total of 222.9 million people were employed in the EU in the third quarter, including 146.9 million in the euro area.

In the EU, employment decreased 0.1% year-on-year in the third quarter, whereas the eurozone recorded a 0.2% rise.

The most notable decreases in employment were registered in Greece – 7.6%, Romania – 4.6%, and Bulgaria – 3.2%.

Compared to the second quarter, employment in the EU and eurozone alike decreased 0.1%.

The largest increases were registered in Estonia – 1.9%, and Hungary – 0.5%.

Employment in Latvia remained unchanged, whereas Lithuania recorded the EU's steepest reduction in employment of 1.8%.

Nina Kolyako

Job cuts to come in Sweden + Baltic states

STOCKHOLM - Swedbank is to cut 600 jobs in Sweden and the Baltic states and take a 330 million crown ($48 million) restructuring charge in the fourth quarter, the bank's chief financial officer said on Tuesday.

After getting slammed by the 2009 financial crisis because of its exposure to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Swedbank has recovered relatively quickly and now has one of the highest levels of capital among banks in Europe.

Goran Bronner, the bank's chief financial officer, told Reuters about the job cuts two days after Swedbank suffered a big outflow of funds in Latvia when people panicked by rumours of troubles at Swedish banks rushed to pull cash out of their accounts. The bank has said the panic has now calmed.

Bronner told Reuters that some 300 jobs in the Baltics and a similar number in Sweden would have to go. Swedbank is the latest in a string of European banks that have been forced to slash staff to keep costs under control.

"The actions taken are going according to plan, and Swedbank will record a small restructuring charge of about 330 million crowns in the fourth quarter," he said.

That would be about 8 percent of the expected operating profit in that quarter, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine smart estimates, which give a greater weighting to analysts with better track records. The bank employs a total 17,000 people.

Teachers’ wages in Estonia will increase in 2013 : Education minister

The state budget for 2013 has to include a wage increase for teachers, Estonian education minister Jaak Aaviksoo said while speaking in the Riigikogu finance committee, LETA/Postimees cited national television.

“We are working in the name of 2013 and the budget that will determine the year after the next will certainly not cope without a wage increase for teachers,” said Aaviksoo.

He said that the wage increase should be considerable but was unwilling to say how big exactly.

“It depends on many aspects, even Greece, how big the result will be,” he said.

Juhan Tere

Estonians from Narva work in Russian ports

Approximately 1,000 Estonians from city Narva work in Russian St. Petersburg-based companies; they are welcome in Ust Luga port and in new vehicle part construction plants, the sea news portal Jura reports.

In the upcoming years, as expected, the region will need about 50,000 workers, writes LETA.

Ust Luga port will have new terminals and new companies will be created in the regions.

The Narva City Employment Commission Chairman Vadim Orlov told about such prospects for the Estonian workers. He tried and found new ways for the inhabitants of this city to find new jobs in the Russian labor market.

Juhan Tere

Unemployed workers live only for present

Workers laid off in spring from Tootsi briquette factory say they are not interested in returning to work as their unemployment fund benefits continue to run. The mayor of the municipality in Pärnu County says he is mystified by their attitude.

Tootsi municipality says it has done everything in its power to help the laid off workers - it tried to attract new employers and introduced bus routes to neighboring municipalities. But many of the laid off workers are still unemployed.

"Only a few of them have found work, as the companies that have pledged to come here have not come but above all we have received assistance from enterprises in the region in putting people to work," said municipality elder Kalev Kaljuste on ERR radio.

One of the companies in the region, Säästke OÜ, has hired 20 Tootsi people. The other is the Wendre AS production outlet in Vändra, where all of the women workers could have been re-employed - except they did not accept the offer.

Kaljuste said many are not interested in returning to work. At Wendre, he said, "we held an open house and their personnel director and manufacturing director were there. And we talked about the possibility of them getting a job and wage conditions. It's a company that is very competitive and honest both at the Estonian and Pärnu level."

Eesti in brief : 20th October 2011

A public poll by Turu-uuringute indicated that 58 percent of Estonian people do not support Estonia’s participation in the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), reports Postimees Online. Opposition to it is equal among Estonians and non-Estonians, 57 and 59 percent, respectively. Twenty-eight percent were for joining the EFSF and 14 percent were unable to state their opinion, said political activist Anti Poolamets, who commissioned the poll, adding that, obviously, the Riigikogu made the decision to join the facility too hastily. The poll also inquired about the attitude towards the euro. Fifty-five percent of the respondents said that they would not support the euro if Estonia had to make the decision to join it now. Thirty-seven percent would still be for the euro. Thirty-one percent of the polled said that the euro has done more harm than good to Estonia; forty-six percent think the euro has done both good and harm, and 17 percent were convinced that euro has done more good than harm. 998 people were polled.

Around two hundred people convened for a demonstration called “Occupy Tallinn” at Tallinn’s Vabaduse Square on Oct. 15 to protest against the rule of banks and decisions of state leaders. This went on alongside with thousands of other people around the world who attended similar demonstrations at the same time, reports Postimees. The demonstration in Tallinn was a peaceful one. One of the initiators, Peeter Proos, explained that one of the aims of the action, that protested against supporting debt-ridden Greece, the decisions of Estonian politicians and the rule of banks, is to “distribute information to people about who, and how, manages our state. The other aim is to let people know how to start acting themselves.” “People have to start speaking up in politics, otherwise, there is no point in criticizing,” he said. In 82 countries around the world, in 950 cities, similar demonstrations took place.

According to the unemployment insurance fund, the number of registered unemployed continues to decline, but the rate of improvement is slowing down, reports bbn.ee. Last week, the number fell by 19 people, which is the lowest count for a long time. In comparison, during the summer months, the number of registered unemployed was falling between 600 and 900 people per week. 1,590 new people were registered as unemployed during the week. Of them, 162 had been made redundant by their employers. A representative of the unemployment insurance fund said that it is only expected that because of seasonal reasons, registered unemployment is not falling as quickly any more. “Seasonal summer jobs are now over and the unemployed have become more active,” said the rep. All in all, the unemployment insurance fund has 46,503 people on its list, which represents 7.2 percent of the total employable population. The fund is advertising 5,929 vacancies in Estonia and 700 abroad.