1. Forthcoming policy developments

2. Ongoing debates

 Forthcoming policy developments

The Nineteenth Programme of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania for 2025-2028 provides that, in order to address the challenges of labor shortage and reducing social exclusion, it will actively support the promotion of employment and entrepreneurship of people with disabilities, their inclusion in the labor market, promote the development of basic financial knowledge and skills, especially among young people; using national and European measures, it will promote youth employment and entrepreneurship so that young people integrate into the labor market as smoothly as possible and create economic value. It is planned to adopt a law on social business, establish a social business council, and ensure that social business is included in all strategic documents of the country, EU financial period and economic assistance plans. These and other measures will expand the scope of the social economy in Lithuania.

The aim will be to help businesses reorient towards a climate-neutral economy; to support circular economy and sustainability technologies, digitalization solutions, the use of secondary raw materials in trade, ensuring that Lithuania's circularity indicator reaches the EU average.
The administrative burden of innovation financing measures will be reduced. In order to promote entrepreneurship and reduce demotivating factors, such as the fear of failure, an early warning system model will be implemented, which will help to preserve businesses experiencing difficulties and create a favorable environment for a second business opportunity.

Ongoing debates

Youth face barriers to entrepreneurship in the areas of social attitudes, lack of skills, lack of work experience, under-capitalisation, lack of networks, and market barriers. It is very important to promote the partnership of Lithuanian business enterprises and educational institutions, because in this way students and teachers get a feel for real business life, see real examples of how a business idea is implemented, its development stages and results. Only by effectively educating secondary school students will we be able to wait and enjoy their achievements in business.

In March 2024 research/survey published Youth entrepreneurship trends in 2023. There is a growing need for help in overcoming bureaucratic and administrative hurdles, while information and assistance in starting a new business is more abundant than ever. In addition to business consultants, accounting companies and financial literacy specialists, organizations such as "the Innovation Agency" and cooperation centers "Spiečius" also play an important role. Despite economic uncertainty and prevailing geopolitical tensions, young people remain the most positive group of society in terms of willingness to start their own business in the near future. Among respondents aged 18-29, 27% of respondents plan to start their own business in the near future (this year or in the next 1-3 years), among respondents aged 30-39 - 20%, in the age group 40-49 - 14%, among older respondents there were less than 10% of those planning to start their own business in the near future, according to the data of the entrepreneurship survey of the residents of the Baltic countries conducted on behalf of SEB bank.