TALLINN - The number of registered jobless in Estonia numbered 20,738 at the beginning of March, down 4.1 percent month-on-month and 31.4 percent year-on-year. Registered unemployed now comprise 2.5 percent of the country's working-age population, the Labor Market Board said.
"The continued fall in registered unemployment is, other than economic growth, due also to the European Social Fund-financed projects targeting different risk groups, whose implementation has helped bring many people back to the labor market," Labor Market Board director Tiina Ormisson said.
Unemployment benefits were paid to 8,237 jobless in February, 12.3 percent fewer than in the month before and 34 percent fewer than at the same time a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the software developer Skype Eesti and BLRT, an industrial group, said that the restrictions imposed on importing labor to Estonia were having a negative effect on development.
The daily Eesti Paevaleht reported that eight months ago the BLRT Grupp sent an application to Economy Minister Edgar Savisaar to temporarily employ 80 shipbuilders from Ukraine at its Tallinn plant. BLRT, which said the profession of ship hull assembly worker has never been taught in Estonia, never received an answer.
As a result, the company had to redirect two large orders measuring 700 million kroons (45 million euros) each to the BLRT Grupp shipyard in Klaipeda. One hundred workers from the Tallinn shipyard are now working in Klaipeda.
Heido Vitsur, adviser to the minister of economy, said BLRT Grupp should spend more effort to search for, hire and train workers from Estonia. He said wages in Ukraine were two or three times lower than in Estonia and that in seeking to hire more foreign laborers BLRT was opting for the easier option.
