Since the late 1990s, the population of Latvia has been declining, but thanks to migrants, it is showing positive trends — over the last year and a half, the number of temporary residence permits in our country has increased by 18.6%, and currently less than 130,000 foreign citizens in Latvia have valid permits. In order to help the citizens of other countries to successfully integrate into the life environment and labour market of our country, the Integration and Inclusion Agency of the Society Integration Foundation (SIF) for new entrants to Latvia actively participates in this process. On 10 October, the Agency organised a discussion on the challenges in this area and solutions for strengthening an inclusive society.

“Our mission is to strengthen national identity and democracy by supporting a civically literate, active, responsible, inclusive and cohesive society. As the number of foreigners in Latvia is rapidly increasing, it is crucial to help them become an equal part of our society, inter alia, by getting included in the labour market, which would also contribute to the development of the country, and our task is to create a systemic and unified national approach, while improving cooperation with representatives of different sectors,” explains Inese Saldābola, Head of the SIF Integration and Inclusion Agency for new entrants to Latvia.

Some of the challenges that migrants face today include employment and learning the state language. Although the number of vacancies in Latvia is currently approaching 90,000, there are various reasons that prevent new entrants from successfully working in them, one of them being the lack of knowledge of the Latvian language, and the demand for courses exceeds the supply. As of 7 October this year, 5,737 Ukrainian civilians had registered for free Latvian language courses, of whom almost half or 2,438 had already completed the courses at various levels of proficiency. According to a survey conducted in 2023 by the Public Opinion Research Centre SKDS by the order of the Latvian Language Agency, the majority of respondents consider the learning of the state language for simple everyday communication to be a necessity for new entrants, and most of them consider 1-2 years to be the most appropriate period of time.

Based on the experience of providing Latvian language courses to Ukrainian civilians in Latvia and to re-emigrants and their family members, SIF has developed a model of a unified and accessible Latvian language learning system for implementation in Latvia, thus providing opportunities for all new entrants to learn Latvian. For migrants to successfully integrate into Latvia’s social and economic life, it is crucial to develop a common understanding of Latvia’s culture, traditions and history, and language plays a central role in this process.

“The work of the Integration and Inclusion Agency is important not only in the context of Latvia’s human capital development, but also because early, timely and targeted support is the key to ensuring that we as a society have a common understanding of our core values. The role of the Integration and Inclusion Agency is, in my opinion, threefold. First, it should be a place where new entrants feel safe, heard and can get the information and support they need. Second, the Integration and Inclusion Agency is a partner for employers. Thirdly, the Integration and Inclusion Agency is working on collecting data on the demand, coverage and impact of services. This will allow us to improve integration support measures in the medium and long term,” emphasised the Minister for Culture Agnese Lāce, addressing the audience.

With new entrants actively joining the labour market or studying in Latvian educational institutions (14.6% of all students are foreigners), it is increasingly necessary to think about how these people can successfully integrate into Latvian society, which is characterised by various stereotypes. Successful integration is based on a two-way acceptance process involving both the host society and the migrants.

Kaspars Gorkšs, Director General of the LDDK: “It is clear that Latvia will not solve the labour shortage with its internal human resources alone. That is why the attraction of foreign professionals must be done in a systemic and regulated way, so that immigration policy can provide solutions to our current problems. A clear regulatory framework, targeted support for employers and job seekers from abroad are steps that need to be taken today and we need to learn from the positive and negative experiences of other countries in order to avoid repeating avoidable mistakes and to achieve results as efficiently as possible — an integrated and responsible society that raises productivity and participates in economic development.”

Providing 8,741 consultations to 5,163 clients, the SIF Integration and Inclusion Agency helped new entrants mostly with migration issues (42% of cases), but also with other issues, including household, employment, education, social services and health. Support was needed for interpretation and translation (most of the assistance was for translation from/into French — 410 cases), psychological services and legal services. The Integration and Inclusion Agency provides new entrants with the necessary resources to take a step towards a successful inclusion process, which requires equal access to private and public services to avoid discrimination, as well as a place to learn about Latvian culture and opportunities to build their own communities and be socially and civically active members of society.

Given the Agency’s wide range of services, SIF sees the need to strengthen cross-sectoral cooperation between different state and local government institutions, employers, the NGO sector and universities, thus taking a major step towards the development of an inclusive society.

In order to continue providing support to migrants, a new website livelatvia.lv has been created, where new entrants can find useful information on support, useful resources from the Latvian government, as well as apply for a consultation or start their first steps in learning Latvian on their own, and find information on free and paid courses throughout Latvia.  As the information is regularly updated and expanded, it can be seen as an important tool for informing and educating migrants.

For reference:

According to the data of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, the number of residence permits has increased by 18.6% in a year and a half — from 31.12.2022 to 01.07.2024, and currently less than 130,000 foreign citizens have valid permits in Latvia, of which a significant number — 29,400 residence permits — have been issued to Ukrainian civilians. According to the SIF data, the largest number of foreigners is currently from Ukraine, but other countries are represented as well — India, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Sri Lanka, China and Belarus. Latvia has an untapped labour potential of foreigners, especially third-country nationals. For example, at the beginning of this year, the data collected by the Ministry of Economy show that around 24,000 Ukrainians currently residing in Latvia are of working age, but the records of the State Revenue Service show that only 8,700 Ukrainian nationals were registered as employees.