ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that austerity policies adopted in the Baltic States since late 2008 have accelerated the formation of bifurcated labor markets of a character that is particular to these post-communist countries. It then proceeds the arrival of austerity and the social unrest accompanying the onset of the crisis in Lithuania are briefly described. Thus, as austerity policies have further accelerated existing tendencies towards the informalization of the secondary labor market through the introduction of part-time, temporary and contingent working arrangements, along with deteriorated working conditions, emigration has, for significant numbers, become the exit route of choice. In response to the onset of crisis austerity policies were introduced which accelerated the informalization of the secondary sector of the labor market. It is now the migration of a new austeriat, a historically concrete embodiment of alienated labor in the current era of austerity, in which the burdens of failed risk-taking by private capital have been socialized of large populations of workers.
