According to a survey from recruitment portal CV Keskus, nearly 75% of Estonian businesses are going into 2017 with plans to hire more staff.

The survey data also showed that 55% of employers plan to create new jobs, an increase compared to 46.7% last year and a third are planning pay raises for their workers.  Nearly 75% of the polled companies plan to hire one new worker, meanwhile, a fifth plan to hire two workers and a quarter plan to hire 3-5 new workers.

CV Keskus states that the main reasons for the increased need of new staff are the general shortage of labour and younger people changing jobs every 2-3 years. This means employers have the options of either raising wages while trying to find new challenges within the company for their workers who wish to leave or to hire new workers.

A third of the interviewed employers are thinking about raising pay in 2017. The planned rise is mostly about 10%. Furthermore, more than 90% of the employers who plan to raise wages intend to adjust wages by up to 10%. On the other hand, 41.7% of employers are not planning to adjust wages while 22.8% are undecided and 2.3% plan to lower them.