SEB survey: Estonians have more companies than their Baltic neighbours

Nineteen percent of the respondents of the SEB survey in Estonia said that they have their own company, while 8% confirmed this in Latvia and Lithuania.

However, the responses of Lithuanians (17% of respondents) and Latvians (14%) showed that they are more often engaged in private business than Estonians (6% of respondents).

Forty-four percent of Lithuanians and 34% of Latvians and Estonians do not intend to engage in business.

"According to the survey, Lithuanians and Latvians are more entrepreneurial than Estonians, but they do not consider the formalisation of business activities to be important. Estonians have considerably more enterprises, one of the reasons being that the creation of a company is very easy and unbureaucratic in Estonia. However, according to the survey, the actual entrepreneurial activity of Estonians is slightly lower than that of the neighbours. Undoubtedly, today's economic environment and high employment in Estonia also favor wage employment” said the Head of the SEB Retail Banking Area Ainar Leppänen.

Lithuanian respondents who wish to start engaging in business have the most business ideas or even several (77%); they are followed by Latvians (67%) and Estonians (61%).
 

Estonians and Latvians see entrepreneurship as a possibility for personal fulfilment

Entrepreneurship is primarily about the realisation of ideas and plans for Estonians and Latvians – about 60% of respondents think so in those countries, but Lithuanians see this as additional income (58%). However, only 6–7 percent of respondents in all countries noted that the inability to find suitable employment leads to individual business activity.

In Estonia, 25% of male and 13% of female respondents own an enterprise. Most entrepreneurs earn over 1,250 euros per month (over 35%) and the lowest number of entrepreneurs earn 750–1000 euros per year (about 17%). The entrepreneurial spirit is supported by education since about 31% of highly educated people are entrepreneurs, while the proportion of entrepreneurs who have basic, secondary or vocational education is under 20%.

The survey included over 3,000 people in Baltic countries from whom over 700 people are engaged in business in one way or another.