Construction company: it's getting harder to find workers from Ukraine

The head of Vilnius-based construction company Naresta says that besides tough competition cutting into profits, another tendency has been observed lately and that is the difficulty to find not only local workers but also an adequate workforce from Belarus or Ukraine, the Verslo Zinios business daily writes on Wednesday.

The company states in its annual financial report that it hires 33 workers from Ukraine, making around 11 percent of its total workforce of 290.

"We have a set share but we see that we'll need more effort, especially next year, to keep it. We would like to hire qualified Ukrainians. We also feel their possibilities to go to Germany or stay in their home market, and it's very complicated to attract local young people," Arunas Slenys, managing director at Naresta, said.

In his words, the company has considerably reduced the number of projects involving the construction of blocks of apartments in recent years as "we still have the fear of that potential crisis“. „Besides, this type of construction is monotonic and provides little challenges. We are looking for more complex projects," he said.

According to Naresta's audited financial reported submitted to the Lithuanian Center of Registers, it posted 31.4 million euros in revenue last year, up 7.6 percent from 2017, and its net profits dropped 1.8 times to almost 0.5 million euros.

Naresta expects its turnover to rise 15-20 percent this year, the Verslo Zinios writes.