TITLE:
Precarious Work in Lithuania: Integration Challenges into the Labour Market for Foreign Born Citizens
AUTHORS:
Indre Huseynova
KEYWORDS:
Precarious Employment, Labor Migration, Temporary Residence Permits, Immigrant Integration, Employment of Foreigners
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.12 No.1,
January
18,
2024
ABSTRACT: Based
on the works of Lithuanian and foreign scientists, this article analyses the problems of precarious employment or
synonymous compliance—insecure work. The distinguished dimensions of the
theoretical analysis of the insecure employment form the supporting field of
the article, and the empirical part consists of the data of the statistical
data (Eurostat, Migration Department, EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS),
Lithuanian Public Employment Service, Lithuanian Department of Statistics,
review of the legal acts (legal basis of the Republic of Lithuania and the
European Union) and the data obtained during the qualitative survey. The
conducted analysis made it possible to highlight the conditions of insecure
employment of foreigners working in Lithuania as non-EU citizens, including insecurity due
to loss of income, poor career opportunities, abuse by employers, or
uncertainty about job retention. The integration of migrant workers into the
Lithuanian labour market is particularly problematic from a legal point of view—the
possibility of changing the employer’s temporary residence permit (TRP) during
the issuing period has been made more difficult. In the latter case, the
employee is, so to speak, tied to a specific job, and the employer has the
possibility to dispose of the amount of remuneration, the loss of work and, of
course, the lack of safe working conditions. Insecurity is exacerbated by the
limitations of the legal framework as well as strict regulations/migration
procedures. The problems are exacerbated in times of crisis, when there is a
risk of losing one’s job, delays in processing migration documents, reduced
wages, and insufficient social protection.