Every company tries to choose very carefully and responsibly when hiring new employees. Experienced specialists are favoured because they are expected to adapt their experience to the new position. Unfortunately, experience does not always guarantee good work or the ability to improve. A lot of employers have already realised that sometimes someone with a lot of years under their belt, who seems to know the ins and outs of the business world is no better than a prospective young specialist, who has recently graduated. The latter is likely to be more receptive, quicker to learn, eager to improve and have just enough of that youthful idealism often so scarce among older professionals.
Labour Exchange Offers Prospective Specialists
Although Lithuanians consider themselves innovative and open to new opportunities, sometimes they can be slow to shed old stereotypes. There’s a prevailing notion that only asocial, low-skilled job seekers register at the Labour Exchange. The reality is completely different: just in the last year, over 11 thousand alumni from Lithuanian universities and colleges applied at the Labour Exchange. In order to help them integrate into the Lithuanian job market, the Labour Exchange is carrying out a subsidiary employment programme. This programme turns an unemployed person into an attractive potential worker by subsidising their wage for a certain amount of time.
Who Can Apply for a Subsidy?
Recent university or college graduates are not the only ones covered by the subsidy programme. The Labour Exchange also subsidises the employment of people with disability, people over 50, as well as all employable people under 29. The programme also applies to workers who have been recently informed about upcoming termination as well as the long-term unemployed. The list of subsidiaries goes on to include people who have been released from prison or have completed certain rehabilitation programmes as well as those who have not worked for more than two years prior to registering at the Labour Exchange.
Extent and Duration of the Subsidy
Upon employing a person through the Labour Exchange who fits at least one of the aforementioned categories, a fixed-time subsidy will be allocated to ease the paying of their salary as well as partly compensate for the payments of mandatory state health insurance. The size of the subsidy cannot exceed 2 minimal monthly salaries and can amount to either 50, 60 or 75%. Usually, 75% of subsidies apply to people with disability whose employability is determined at 25% or their disability determined as serious. 60% applies to people with medium disability or 30-40% employability. In these cases, the subsidy is termless. In all other cases, compensation amounts to 50% over a 6 or 12-month period.
Requirements for the Employer
The subsidiary programme allows the participation of employers who are not bankrupt or undergoing bankruptcy, not currently restructuring, and have not previously broken commitments to the Labour Exchange. The company cannot be undergoing liquidation or any administrative penalties that are still in effect under certain articles of the Code of the Administrative Violations of Law of the Republic of Lithuania.
