Working life country profile for Lithuania
This profile describes the key characteristics of working life in Lithuania. It aims to provide the relevant background information on the structures, institutions, actors and relevant regulations regarding working life.
This includes indicators, data and regulatory systems on the following aspects: actors and institutions, collective and individual employment relations, health and well-being, pay, working time, skills and training, and equality and non-discrimination at work. The profiles are systematically updated every two years.
Between 2012 and 2022, there was a significant increase in gross domestic product (GDP) in Lithuania. According to the State Data Agency (Valstybės duomenų agentūra) (SDA), GDP grew on average by 3.4% annually, and real GDP per capita in 2022 increased by 46.2% compared to 2012. GDP growth in Lithuania was the highest between 2020 and 2021, reaching 6%. Unemployment rates fell and employment rates increased substantially between 2012 and 2022: total unemployment decreased from 13.4% to 6%, while youth unemployment (of people aged 15–24) decreased from 26.7% to 11.9%; the total employment rate increased from 71.8% to 78.6%, and the youth employment rate rose from 29.3% to 36.3%.
In Lithuania, both individual and collective labour relations of workers who have signed employment contracts are regulated by the Labour Code of the Republic of Lithuania (Law No. XII-2603). The code was adopted by the Lithuanian parliament on 14 September 2016, and came into force on 1 July 2017. The new Labour Code liberalised work regulation and legitimised more flexible relations between employers and employees in Lithuania.
Certain aspects of the employment of civil servants (such as their status or remuneration for work) are regulated in Lithuania by the new Law on the Civil Service (Law No. VIII-1316), which was approved on 29 June 2018 and entered into force on 1 January 2019.
The procedure for the establishment and functioning of trade unions is regulated by the Law on Trade Unions (Law No. I-2018), approved on 21 November 1991.
The status of works councils, the procedure for their establishment and other aspects of their activities are regulated by the Labour Code.
The history of independent Lithuanian trade unions and employer organisations is relatively short. Although trade union density during the Soviet period was very high, Lithuanian unions began to play a more substantial role in industrial relations only after the reconstitution of independent Lithuania at the beginning of the 1990s.
During the Soviet period, the government was the only employer. Independent employer organisations were established only after 1990.
The Labour Code valid since 1 July 2017 established criteria for social partners to be represented on the Tripartite Council of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos trišalė taryba, TCRL). Currently, the TCRL consists of seven representatives of employees, seven representatives of employers and seven representatives of the government.
Three trade unions and six employer organisations are represented on the TCRL. The trade unions are the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation (Lietuvos profesinių sąjungų konfederacija); the Lithuanian Trade Union ‘Solidarumas’ (Lietuvos profesinė sąjunga ‘Solidarumas’); and the General Trade Union of the Republic of Lithuania (Respublikinė jungtinė profesinė sąjunga). The employer organisations are the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists (Lietuvos pramonininkų konfederacija); the Confederation of Lithuanian Employers (Lietuvos darbdavių konfederacija); the Association of Lithuanian Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Crafts (Lietuvos pramonės, prekybos ir amatų rūmų asociacija); the Chamber of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania (Lietuvos Respublikos žemės ūkio rūmai); the Investors’ Forum (Investuotojų forumas); and the Lithuanian Business Confederation (Lietuvos verslo konfederacija). These unions and organisations participate regularly in national-level social dialogue. The dominant level of collective bargaining in Lithuania is company level. Although sector-level collective bargaining is least developed, since 2017–2018 a cross-sectoral collective agreement and a number of sectoral collective agreements covering some wage-related issues in the public sector (in education, healthcare, social care and some other sectors) have been repeatedly signed and renewed.
In general, the social partners played a modest role in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the need for rapid decision-making, social partners were most often just ‘informed and rarely consulted’ in the process of policymaking and decision-making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
