Working Life Barometer in the Baltic Countries 2002 (pdf) - mol.fi

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In addition to unemployment benefits state employment agencies offer job
seekers also certain measures belonging to active employment policy: support
for starting business (a single subsidy of 10 thousand kroons which the
government plans to raise to 20 thousand), training for labour market and
labour market support to employers (support for wages) who hire an
unemployed person whose competitiveness on the labour market is relatively
low (disabled persons; persons in the age group 16–20, mothers of young
children; persons who will be eligible to old-age pension in five years or less;
ex-convicts etc.). Quite a number of employers have found such support the
last means to save the business or an object of unethical manipulation. As the
support is limited to one year attempts have been made to regularly and
unlawfully replace less competitive labour force. The proportion of active
labour market measures in all expenditures made on the labour market (in
2001, 270 million kroons) has stayed around 20% in recent years.
In 2000 the new pension act created a totally new kind of pension in Estonia –
early old-age pension. This pension is meant for persons who have no job and
have less than 3 years to the regular pension age. Early old age pension is
lower than the regular pension by 0.4% for every month that the person retires
earlier and this reduction is permanent. In 2001 the new possibility of leaving
the labour market was actively used – 2400 persons retired early.
WAGE POLICY
The liberal wage policy chosen in Estonia during transition to market
economy has been constantly pursued. The government's interference in the
wage policy of the business sector is very small being limited to the
establishment of the minimum wage and fulfilment of its obligations stated in
the labour legislation. The latter consists mainly in providing internationally
acknowledged guarantees to employees, the weaker party in the labour market.
The state plays a more important role in regulating the pay of the employees of
the government institutions and other public institutions (whose payroll
expenditures are established by the law on the state budget). At the same time,
however, rules concerning their pay have had an ever decreasing role in the
actual formation of their remuneration. In reality the salaries in the public
sector are often formed similarly to the pay in the business sector, which has