Lietuva in brief - 2011-09-08

Workers will find it increasingly harder to earn their wages in Lithuania, the international management and consulting company Hay Group said after conducting a study, reports ELTA. Employers do not rush to raise the fixed wage and tend to set out more stringent requirements for a higher bonus, Hay Group Director General for the Baltics Neda Songinaite said. Organizations introduce more “safeguards” to deal with financial risk more effectively as they link wages to general performance of the organization, Songinaite noted. “However, a more active labor market, migration rates and the ensuing consequences of the economic recession force employers to take up far more effective wage bills and measures for their differentials,” the Hay Group head for the Baltics said. According to the survey, from May 2010 to May 2011, 58 percent of companies raised wages to some of their employees; 42 percent did not change wages. Hay Group surveyed nearly 260 companies operating in different sectors and analysed wages of 75,000 employees

The Lithuanian president’s team presented the Seimas with draft amendments to the law regulating the funding of political parties and political campaigns and control over funding aimed at prohibiting legal bodies from funding parties, reports ELTA. The president also proposed a cap on individual donations. “In elections, politicians and their ideas should compete, not the money of lobbying groups behind them. At present, Lithuania’s political life is dominated by competition in money, which concerns not only political corruption, but also threats to the democracy and security of the state,” the president stressed. Such neighboring countries as Poland, Latvia and Estonia have already banned party donations from legal bodies, Grybauskaite said. The president proposed prohibiting party donations from legal persons. Grybauskaite named prevention of political corruption as a priority in the third year of her term of office.