Lithuania's population is down 0.6 percent from last year according to the Department of Statistics, primarily because of unemployed people moving abroad for work.

VILNIUS — There’s still a month before 2009 closes, but it’s already the biggest year for emigration in Lithuanian history.

The perennial problem of the Baltic states, the “brain drain” of its youth, is being exacerbated by the economic crisis. From January to the end of October, over 18,200 Lithuanians have expatriated this year. Most went to the West, especially the U.S., the U.K., Ireland and Scandinavia in search of jobs.

Although this is the highest year in terms of sheer numbers, the rise in emigration was fairly modest from 2008. According to records kept by the Department of Statistics last year 17,015 persons emigrated from Lithuania. From 2007 to 2008, in better economic times only about 3,300 persons left the country.

Dalia Ambrozaitienė, deputy general director at the Department of Statistics, said this will be the “worst” year for emigration in Lithuania.

It’s the economy

The bulk of those that left are young adults without families, who are more able to move than older Lithuanians who typically have less English skills and a spouse and children.

The primary motivation is economic. Salaries in Lithuania have always lagged behind the West, but at least there was a steady amount of job openings during the “Baltic Tiger” boom. Now Lithuania is one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by the crisis that has reduced job vacancies to a trickle as employers downsize and shut down.

Tadas Guobužas, 28, was a construction site manager in Vilnius until two months ago, when he left for Norway to do construction work there. The building sector has been one of the most affected by the crisis, with that amount of available jobs plunging.

“You can’t earn normal money in Lithuania. It’s impossible to earn money, it’s impossible,” Guobužas told Baltic Reports. “You know I don’t like to work for 1,000 litai (€290) a month. The salaries are too small.”

Lithuanian job-seekers say for what few jobs are available, the pay is reduced to as low as 800 litai (€230) a month. Just two years ago the same job would have paid at least 2,000 litai (€580) a month. Regardless, most job openings receive hundreds of applications by unemployed people desperate for any work. In a nation of 3.3 million, more than 220,000 are registered unemployed and there are currently only about 1,000 job openings, according to government statistics.

A long-term problem

The exodus of the young and talented is nothing new for Lithuania, though. Citing a “better attitude” and more economic opportunity abroad, tens of thousands of young Lithuanians are sharing their skills and labor with the rest of the world instead of their native land.

In Sept. 2008 just as the crisis was setting in, Vykintas Bartkus, 29, left Vilnius for Paris.

“The Lithuanian market is not able to give such a wide range of experience as, for example, France can. The main point is connections I get being outside of Lithuania — different people, doing business in different ways and everyday teaching you something new,” Bartkus told Baltic Reports. “The reason is money. My work is better paid here than in Lithuania.”

In 2003 Gitana Galvanauskaitė, 26, went to the U.S. to start a cleaning company. Now the business is successfully operating in Florida and she has no intentions of leaving the Sunshine State for the Land of Rain.

“My life is much easier and happier because in Lithuania you have to work very hard but cannot afford anything, you save every penny and people are so rude and nasty. I prefer to stay where people smile all the time, even if they fake it,” Galvanauskaitė told Baltic Reports.

— Baltic Reports reporter Kevin Dugan contributed to this article.