More than 10,000 Ukrainian war refugees employed in Latvia / Article

As of December 4, the information systems of the State Revenue Service (VID) registered 9341 Ukrainian refugees for whom employment taxes had been paid, Elita Teitse-Mamaja, a spokesperson for the agency, told LSM+.

In addition, they are still settling into work – in less than four months, since September 5, the number of such taxpayers has increased by 343.

Another 1,259 people are registered as self-employed. This brings the total number of Ukrainian refugees working legally to 10,600. According to the Central Statistical Bureau (CSB), at the beginning of the year (i.e. 11 months ago, unfortunately, there is no more recent information) there were 25,700 war refugees from Ukraine living in Latvia, including, people who are not of working age.

The most popular occupations (compiled by the VID according to an international classification) in which Ukrainians work are a good illustration of the fact that people who have recently arrived in the country, have not “settled in” sufficiently and have not mastered the language, work in jobs that are not desirable for the local population. Most of these jobs are not the most prestigious and well-paid, LSM+ concluded from a study of the State Employment Agency’s (SEA) vacancy database.

Occupation

Number of people employed

Janitor
671

Auxiliary worker
657

Factory worker
405

Cook
287

Kitchen staff
211

Truck driver
203

Retail sales assistant
176

Construction worker
166

Housekeeper
150

Cook’s assistant
143

The absolute leader is “cleaner/janitor” – according to the NVA, 671 jobs were filled by Ukrainians. These jobs – with a few exceptions – pay no more than the legal minimum wage, which this year is €700 before tax (and where hourly rates are listed, they start at €4). And there are many such vacancies – currently 68.

More is being offered to “auxiliary workers” (the second largest group of refugee workers): salaries of €700 (and hourly rates of €4.5) are quite rare, typically over €1000, and offers of €1500-1600 (with a proviso “depending on performance”). Employers have reported a shortage of 100 such workers.

But, for example, 35 “kitchen staff” (who are not “cooks”, and are in fact only auxiliary workers) are needed (and their hourly rates start at €4 and their salaries at €700, although they can “earn” more than €1,500 per “hour”, as indicated in the job vacancy advertisements posted by the NVA).

An employee without dependants receives €500 of €700 and €715 of €1,000 after tax. According to the CSB’s calculations, in September 2024 the national average pre-tax wage in the private sector was €1,658 and €1,788 in the Riga planning region. In total, there were 567,000 private sector workers in Latvia that month.

Another aspect is the information provided by the VID on the sectors in which Ukrainians worked. The leader there is the catering sector, although the top ten is, for example, the IT sector.

Sector
Number of persons employed

Restaurants, catering services
637

Construction
368

Retail sales at non-specialized stores, mostly grocery
352

General state services
312

Freight transport 
280

Data processing and management
277

Hotels and accommodation
261

General cleaning
233

Hospital work
213

Temporary occupation
184

Those who have decided to work in the beauty sector account for more than a third of all self-employed Ukrainians – 425 (self-employment does not always mean fully autonomous activity: for example, such a person may rent an equipped workplace in an already operating salon; LSM+ recently published a story about a Ukrainian who built her working life in Latvia in this way).

The second most popular sector for self-employed Ukrainian refugees is courier services, which employs 151 people. All other sectors are represented by double-digit figures and are quite diverse: they include, for example, education and consulting (23 each), programming (19), professional photography (14), internet and mail order (12) and creative artistic professions (12).

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