Foto: Edijs Pālens, LETA.
As pointed out in my previous post, the labour force in Latvia is set for decline for many years to come due to the effects of poor demographics that started in the mid-1980s. Very small cohorts of young people are set to join the labour market while much bigger cohorts will leave it.
Noone can change the demographics of the past but might the situation be ameliorated by larger labour force participation and higher employment among those already of working age? Most likely not overly much, unfortunately, but that should not imply that nothing is to be done. Here are some numbers.
Roughly half of the Latvian population participates in the labour force i.e. is either working or looking for a job. This is not bad - it is on par with the US and UK, much better than e.g. Italy but a few percentage points behind Estonia; in other words most likely not much room for improvement here (Note: the number is possibly a bit too flattering for Latvia given relatively few children and (still) not so many pensioners - with no changes this ratio will also fall in the years to come).