RIGA 's President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said in an interview that she is alarmed by the exodus of Latvia's working-age population to richer EU member states and that this represented on of the greatest challenges facing the government.
In an interview, published on Monday in Vesti, a hard-hitting Russian language daily that sympathizes with the Soviet Union, Vike-Freiberga acknowledged that Latvian employers could not compete with companies in Ireland and other richer EU countries that have opened their doors to low-skill laborers. As a result, young Latvians are moving abroad to work, a trend that has been diminishing the country's labor pool and taxpayers' base.
"The government and society have to find a mutually acceptable solution for increasing wages in our economy, otherwise the situation will turn into a kind of a vicious circle," Vike-Freiberga said.
Indeed, all three Baltic countries are in the grips of a massive labor outflow, as both higher and lower skill workers shop around for better wages abroad. The situation has become so acute in some towns that several employers in the Baltics have been forced to import workers 's e.g., from Romania or Ukraine 's since there are not enough locals to fill the vacancies.
The president also defended planned salary increases for public sector workers.
"People in Latvia should get rid of the opinion that public servants are parasites who do not need anything and grow fat at the state's expense. And really, if we want the country to develop and the money that comes from the EU to be spent in the right way we need highly professional public servants," the president said.
