Lietuvos jaunimas ir pagyvenę asmenys darbo rinkoje: nedarbo pasikeitimų vertinimas lyginamosios analizės kontekste

LTStraipsniu siekiama detaliau įvertinti Lietuvos jaunimo ir pagyvenusių žmonių nedarbo skirtumus, atskleidžiant stebimų pasikeitimų ypatumus. Straipsnyje atliekama skirtingomis metodikomis nustatytų jaunimo ir pagyvenusių žmonių nedarbo rodiklių lyginamoji analizė. Atlikta analizė leidžia detaliau įvertinti šių tikslinių grupių nedarbo rodiklių skirtumus bei dinamikos tendencijas. Šalia įprastinio nuo darbo jėgos skaičiuojamo nedarbo lygio rodiklio straipsnio autorius taip pat pateikia demografinio nedarbo lygio rodiklio analizės rezultatus. Esminis dėmesys šioje publikacijoje skiriamas Lietuvos jaunimo ir pagyvenusių asmenų nedarbo lygio rodiklių analizei. Be to, vienas iš straipsnio privalumų – situacijos darbo rinkoje įvertinimas Baltijos šalyse, o kitas svarbus jo vertingumas – nedarbo lygio svyravimų periodizavimas ES šalyse per ilgesnį laikotarpį. Raktažodžiai: nedarbo lygis, darbo rinka, jaunimas, pagyvenę asmenys, tikslinės grupės integracija. [Iš leidinio]

ENThe article aims to provide an in-depth evaluation of differences in unemployment of youth and the elderly in Lithuania, revealing the peculiarities of the changes observed. The article provides a comparative analysis of unemployment rates of youth and the elderly, determined through various methodologies. The conducted analysis allows for a detailed evaluation of the differences between the unemployment rates of these two target groups, as well as their dynamic tendencies. Alongside the usual unemployment rate based on labour force, the author of the article also provides the results of analysis of the demographic unemployment rate. The main focus of this publication is the analysis of the unemployment rates of youth and the elderly in Lithuania; however, one of the priorities of the article is the evaluation of the situation within the labour market in the Baltic states. Another important priority of this publication is the periodization of long-term unemployment fluctuations in EU member states. Normally, scientific literature evaluates the status of a certain social (target) population group within a country’s labour market, and provides a detailed overview of their opportunities for integrating into the labour market, as well as the means to do so. However, there is an evident lack of research providing comparative analysis of the status within the labour market of the various population groups in Lithuania. There are virtually no scientific papers comparing the status of youth and the elderly within a country’s labour market through application of various unemployment methodologies. The changes in the status of youth and the elderly within the labour market are evaluated through a prism of a comparative analysis of the unemployment rate in the Baltic states, which can be considered a separate region within the EU, based on the observed similarities in unemployment rate fluctuations.In the article, a great deal of attention is given to the periodization of long-term fluctuations of the unemployment rate within the EU member states. This allows for an overview of unemployed rate fluctuations under various conditions of different development stages of EU member states’ labour markets. The cyclic manner of the development of unemployment allows to evaluate the changes in the status of youth and the elderly within the labour market in the context of the current crisis of the pandemic and the earlier downturn of the global economy. Due to the effect caused by the economic crisis of the current pandemic, 2020 was characterized by a third wave of rising unemployment; however, its scale has so far been much smaller compared the previous periods of economic decline. In view of long-term dynamics, it can be said that the labour markets of the Baltic states had already reached a more mature stage of their development in the previous decade, as the fluctuations of the unemployment rate had markedly decreased, and did not become as drastic as compared to earlier periods. Analysis of the available data reveals that the unemployment rate among youth in Lithuania, calculated by the Statistics Department, exceeds the unemployment rate among the elderly across the entire timeframe observed; however, due to the effects of economic crises, the difference between these rates increases substantially, but decreases accordingly once the effects of an economic upturn become apparent. Despite that, it cannot be categorically stated that the young people tend to fare worse in the labour market compared to the elderly, even if such a conclusion may seem to arise from a formal analysis of the values of the usual unemployment rate.Results of a standard statistical analysis based on data gathered through labour force research show that unemployment rate fluctuations within target demographic groups tend to be characterized by wave-pattern curves. When a change of a country’s economic cycles causes an adverse effect, a wave of rising unemployment arises; accordingly, when the situation is normalized again, the rate’s fluctuation curve falls as well. Analysis of the dynamics of the usual unemployment rate of youth shows that its value depends on relatively big fluctuations of the labour force rate, which become more apparent during a longer period. Because of this, a comparative analysis of the unemployment rate of different demographic groups would benefit from a wider application of other methodologies for determining their status within the labour market, which would allow for a more objective evaluation of the long-term tendencies of the subject of research. Absolute rate analysis alone reveals that the number of the unemployed elderly has exceeded the number of unemployed youth from as early as 2015. However, when analysing the situation within the labour market, a demographic unemployment rate can also be employed; it is calculated as a ratio between the unemployed and a specific group of the working age population. Results of the analysis show that the demographic unemployment rate of youth is much lower than compared to calculations of unemployment based on the labour force rate. The especially low value of the demographic unemployment rate of youth is determined by the large portion of inactive population within this age group. As such, application of the demographic unemployment rate shows a substantially decreased difference between the unemployment of youth and the elderly. [...] Keywords: unemployment rate, labour market, young people, the elderly, target groups, integration. [From the publication]