
Lithuania Reforms Tax and Pension Systems
In late June the Lithuanian Parliament adopted a law that consolidated the employer and employee base for social security contributions and significantly cut the rate of contributions.
In late June the Lithuanian Parliament adopted a law that consolidated the employer and employee base for social security contributions and significantly cut the rate of contributions.
In political discussions, we often ask whether a specific policy will create or destroy jobs. The success of an economic sector is often measured by the number of jobs it provides. The question of jobs is particularly topical in the context of new businesses or start-ups.
An example of innovation is a standardized cargo container. Today, there are more than 20 million of these containers around the globe and we move practically everything in them. This innovation from the late sixties completely changed the world.
This year the Tax Freedom Day comes five days later; regrettably, government spending surpasses economic growth and Lithuanian taxpayers should work more and more just to pay taxes. To compare, Estonia celebrated on May 7, the United States on April 23, and Australia on April 13.
Lithuania’s new Labor Code that was supposed to be flexible in balancing employee-employer interests is to take effect as of 1 July 2017. It was already approved by the previous government, but vetoed by the President. Therefore, its entry into force was postponed and so began the process of its improvement.
On the one hand, Slovak unemployment rate is declining. Automotive industry and large companies find it difficult to hire enough employees. According to the recent reports, workers are brought in not only from Ukraine or Hungary, but even from Serbia.
If you think that these trends won’t affect you, because although you still have plenty time before you retire, or because you are not a blue-collar worker, don’t cheer too soon. The development of artificial intelligence can bring robotization and automatization not only to sectors where manual work with often repeated actions is needed.
Competition creates pressure to decrease profits in every part of production. Therefore, if someone would like to “help” developing countries by restrictions and price regulations, there should not expect that all costs will be absorbed by the corporations.
Posting of workers plays an essential role in the internal market of the European Union. Drawing on the fundamental values of the free movement of persons and the free movement of services, it allows workers from one EU member state to work and carry out services in another member state on a temporary basis.
On September 14, 2016, the Lithuanian Parliament endorsed a new Labour Code which will bring about the most notable changes in terms of types of employment contracts, working time and overtime regulation, annual leave, employee dismissal procedures, and the size of severance pay.