Estonia

As there has been severe shortage of employees in Estonia for some time, this has driven the rise of salary requirements. COVID-19 and the ensuing economic crisis have affected the labour market in Estonia. In particular, the number of vacancies decreased in March 2020 but, due to government measures, there was only a slight decrease of salary expectations as people have preferred to stay at home and are not eager to enter the job market.

Around 120,000 people received wage support in April, which is a fifth of those in employment, and some of them would have lost their jobs without the support measures. The level of unemployment is expected to rise when the wage compensation supports ends and could exceed 13% by the end of 2020.

Unlike the great financial crisis that started in 2008, which hit the production and logistics sectors the hardest, this crisis has hit most in the labour-intensive service sector. In the production and logistics sectors we have observed a return to a more normal and stable situation. Comparing July to April 2020, there are 95% more vacancies in production and 70% more in logistics.

According to Statistics Estonia, in June 2020 the production of industrial enterprises decreased by 6% compared to June 2019. Production decreased in manufacturing and mining, while energy production increased, owing to last year’s low comparison basis.

It is continuously challenging to find people for basic unskilled roles, and in the production sector there is a high demand for welders and CNC operators. Estonia is a small country and the situation is similar across the country. Many smaller cities have received foreign investments but currently have serious difficulties in filling production operator positions and even unskilled blue-collar roles.

At the beginning of the current crisis, during the lockdown period, several logistics companies were actively recruiting additional temporary workers in order to manage the increased level of orders in e-commerce. Initial requests came from retailers, which were followed by inquiries from delivery companies.

Estonia has a national airline and one of the biggest passenger ship operations in Northern Europe. Both have been severely impacted by the crisis and have made redundancies. Partly as a result, it is currently easier to find specialists for transport logistic positions.

Payments in Estonia