Government minister Vytautas Šilinskas believes that the road transport sector in Lithuania should improve working conditions to remedy the industry’s labour shortage.
Šilinskas argues that the number of permits, which is 21,600 this year, is a reflection on the large staff turnover experienced by Lithuanian road transport companies.
“They [hauliers] can bring 21,000 [3rd-country nationals] without offering work to Lithuanians, and if they want to bring more, they must offer work to Lithuanians. 21,000 is really a lot, because the industry employs about 80,000 people, and a quarter of them change every year,” Vytautas Šilinskas said in an interview with LRT on Thursday.
According to him, the driver shortage problem is not caused by the quotas, but rather high staff turnover and unattractive working conditions.
However, Zenonas Buivydas, Secretary General of the Lithuanian National Road Carrier Association Linava, is adamant that express visa quotas for recruiting third-country nationals should be scrapped due to a shortage of drivers.
“They [the quotas] shouldn’t exist at all and they were never needed. They are shooting us in the foot,” said Zenonas Buivydas in an interview for LRT radio.
Last year, Lithuania issued more than 23,000 work permits to foreigners from 3rd countries.
Most permits were issued to citizens of Belarus (42%), Kyrgyzstan (13%), Uzbekistan (11%), Tajikistan (9%) and Ukraine (5%). The total number of permits available to all sectors was just under 17,000, with around 72% of those permits used for truck drivers.
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