Natalja Viilmann, Eesti Pank, economist
According to
preliminary data, productivity per employed person grew by 1.8% year-on-year in the last quarter
of 2009. Since employers have widely used such measures as decreasing working hours
and cutting wages, the number of jobs declined to a lesser degree in 2009 as a whole compared
to the extent of the economic contraction.
Although the recovery
of demand should reincrease the amount of job offers, the number and distribution of the employed
across fields of activity will not rebound in the near future. The recreation of jobs is
unlikely in the construction sector, but since exports are picking up, it can be forecast that the
number of the employed will increase in manufacturing. However, with both production capacity and labour
resource strongly underutilised, there will be no extensive creation of
jobs this year.
According to Eesti Pank's earlier
forecast, the number of the unemployed will continue to rise also in
the first half of 2010. When the crisis hit, labour costs
were cut relatively swiftly and extensively, but the response will be slower in
the economic recovery stage: productivity will increase first and then working hours
and wage funds will start growing.
The Labour Market Review prepared
in January 2010 is available on the
website of Eesti
Pank.
