Lithuania has unique characteristics and smart human resources, which should be used to foster competitiveness. Lithuanian lands were united under MINDAUGAS in 1236; over the next century, through alliances and conquest, Lithuania extended its territory to include most of present-day Belarus and Ukraine. By the end of the 14th century Lithuania was the largest state in Europe. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first of the Soviet republics to declare its independence, but Moscow did not recognize this proclamation until September of 1991 (following the abortive coup in Moscow)2 . Lithuania’s economy has grown faster than most other OECD economies over the past 10 years, unemployment continues to fall, and public finances have become stable after a long period of deficits and a rising debt3 . Lithuania’s gross domestic product is €34.95 billion a year. That makes it the largest economy of the three Baltic states, but just one-tenth of the size of Poland’s economy. Small it may be, but it has been growing fast: Lithuania’s economy has almost doubled in size since 2000. In 2017-01-09 the UN has changed the status of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from Eastern European countries to the states of Northern Europe4 . However, Lithuania is not coping with the problems of youth emigration and inclusion, which are decreasing slightly, and young people who have left Lithuania return to their homeland slowly.

None of Lithuanian higher education institutions prepare youth workers; this fact is deepening the future problem that there will be no suitable professionals capable of providing those services. Municipalities are suggested to actively establish youth centers and open spaces in the missing areas. It is considered as an example that social workers, social pedagogues could be retrained to youth workers qualifications, thereby increasing their competencies and developing the ability to provide quality services to youth centers and open spaces. At the state level, it is necessary to ensure the dissemination of the youth work outcomes in order to form a positive image of the youth work system and show the results of what is accomplished through the youth work as a tool in the context of other policies, e.g. social policy and employment policy. Based on the analysis of young people involvement in youth programs and activities as well as monitoring the unemployment development trends and forecasts of young people (under 25 years), it is presumed that an active youth participation in social life, like youth work and youth organizations, has a positive influence on more successful integration of young people into the labor market.