The Estonian financial sector is strongly intertwined with the Scandinavian model, where trade unions are an important part of the sector. When the Scandinavian banks expanded to Estonia in the 1990s, unsuccessful attempts were made to form trade unions for workers in the sector. Employers now say
The national minimum wage in Estonia has been fixed annually by tripartite agreement since 1992. Since 2002, it has been negotiated between the Estonian Trade Union Confederation (EAKL [1]) and the Estonian Employers’ Confederation (ETTK [2]) and then brought into effect by government decree (
The new Civil Service Act [1] was approved by Estonia's parliament in June 2012, after a decade of attempts to modernise the country's public services and align them with internationally accepted principles of public service. [1] http://www.legaltext.ee/et/andmebaas/tekst.asp?loc=text&dok=2013X11
In 2012, the Estonia Centre for Applied Research (CENTAR [1]) carried out the study entitled The participation of people with neither vocational nor tertiary education in lifelong learning (2.4 MB PDF [2]). It investigates the learning practices of people who have no vocational or higher education
Estonia’s unemployment rate was 10.4% among 15–64 year olds in 2012 and is still relatively high. However, this is of little help to companies that have a shortage of skilled labour because employers and many economic analysts have acknowledged that Estonia has a shortage of qualified specialists
Research by Estonia’s National Audit Office (NAO [1]) has investigated ways the state has tackled the issue of unemployment in the country. The report, State activity in bringing the unemployed to the labour market (in Estonian, 1,39Mb PDF [2]), assessed the support provided by the Estonian
In December 2012, Estonia’s Centre of Applied Social Sciences (CASS [1]) presented a study, The elderly in the Estonian labour market (in Estonian, 1.5KB PDF [2]). Its aim was to gather labour market related information on people aged between 50 and 74. The study was designed to map their situation
Researchers at Praxis Centre for Policy Studies [1] have looked at how Estonia’s benefits system affects the willingness of people to work. The study (in Estonian, 4Mb PDF) [2] on the impact of social benefits on work incentives analysed how the payment of different social benefits encouraged and
Estonian collective bargaining legislation was based on the principle that even though an agreement was in place for fixed term, employees and employers had to comply with its conditions until a new one was signed by both parties. The problem for employers was that this meant that even when a
In December 2008, a new Employment Contracts Act was approved by the Estonian parliament (Riigikogu [1]) which took effect on 1 July 2009. One of the measures was to improve labour market security for employees by extending eligibility for unemployment insurance benefit to people who left their