The Center for International Social Studies at Tallinn University focused on the labor market in Ida-Viru County and the region's efforts in reskilling and skills acquisition. The analysis was part of the broader European Union project Skills2Capabilities, which aims to align workforce skills with the real needs of the labor market. Semi-structured interviews with 28 experts offered insight into the realities of the green transition — how necessary skills are actually being developed and what stands in the way.

The interviewees included policymakers, representatives of the local public sector, employers, educational institutions and trade unions. The most pressing issue that emerged was the simultaneous implementation of the green transition and the shift to Estonian-language education. While the experts did not oppose the goals of either transition, they highlighted practical barriers to carrying out both reforms at the same time.

Language as an important future skill but currently a barrier

According to experts, the green transition requires not only technical skills but also a new mindset — so-called future skills. The "worker of the new era" is expected to possess technical literacy, whether it's the ability to operate automated machinery or understand green technologies like renewable energy and environmentally sustainable production.

Representatives from the education and labor sectors noted that beyond technical abilities, personal qualities have become just as critical: analytical thinking, adaptability and strong self-management skills. Perhaps the greatest challenge here is psychological — adjusting to the idea that lifelong learning is the new norm.

Against this backdrop, public sector and education leaders also emphasized the importance of language proficiency. Without Estonian and English, access to new information and technology is limited. Unfortunately, this remains one of the most difficult barriers to overcome in Ida-Viru County.

With support from the European Union's Just Transition Fund (JTF), €353 million has been allocated to Ida-Viru County to help ease the socioeconomic impact of moving away from the carbon-intensive oil shale sector, including through retraining. The fund has supported the creation of new formal education curricula at vocational and higher education levels, as well as a wide range of continuing education programs, primarily targeted at workers leaving the oil shale industry.

The guiding principle of the JTF is that the transition to a climate-neutral economy must be fair and inclusive, leaving no one behind. But this can only happen if the measures are actually accessible to the people they're intended for.

One interviewee from the education sector explained: "What we truly need are these future skills or general skills or general competencies. Even just adaptability. Everything related to readiness — for lifelong learning, for being prepared to learn something new or retrain when needed. I don't think this can be narrowed down to just the context of the green transition. I'd say it's critically important across the entire framework of education and continuing training."

Poor language skills of (re)trainees

The first major concern involves current middle school graduates in Ida-Viru County. Young people with poor Estonian and English skills struggle to complete technical education in Estonian or take part in international exchange programs designed to support the development of green skills in English. In these cases, the green and language transitions together create a complex web of challenges for both youth and educational institutions that, due to historical reasons, will likely persist for years to come. This situation is marked by uncertainty about the future.

As a result, young Russian-speaking students may face short-term difficulties in acquiring a profession. This deepens the inequality between students whose first language is Estonian and those whose is Russian. A young person who drops out due to inadequate language skills is also unable to contribute their talents to the local labor market. Another vulnerable group directly affected by limited access to retraining is current and former oil shale sector workers. Many of them lack the Estonian-language proficiency needed for study.

However, views on the role of language in retraining vary widely in Ida-Viru County. Educational institutions and some policymakers argue that studying in Estonian gives workers a clear long-term advantage by expanding employment opportunities and reducing dependence on a single employer. In their view, language skills provide mobility and freedom of choice — something the Russian-language work environment has historically restricted.

Local employers and trade union representatives, however, describe the situation in far more troubling terms. They say it is unrealistic to expect a middle-aged miner, who has worked for decades in a Russian-speaking team and doesn't use Estonian in daily life, to successfully acquire a new technical profession in a foreign language. In such cases, language becomes not a gateway, but a barrier — one that risks pushing people out of the labor market entirely.

Employers: Language or technical skills?

The current industrial environment in Ida-Viru County is predominantly Russian-speaking. In interviews, representatives from various industrial companies emphasized that, from their perspective, the primary criterion for hiring is not an employee's Estonian-language proficiency, but their professional competence. This, they stressed, is not a principled opposition to Estonian, but a matter of business logic. In their view, requiring Estonian in vocational training weakens the acquisition of technical skills, which in turn affects both workplace safety and efficiency.

For companies with an international background, the working language is often English, making Estonian-language requirements unnecessary for day-to-day operations. Employers view the widespread lack of Estonian-language skills as a result of the state's past inaction — something that now forces them to provide costly internal technical training or continuously translate materials into Russian.

A local company representative put it this way: "And of course, I think the state has made the decision to fully transition to Estonian, which is great — I understand the state, I understand why they want all education to be conducted in Estonian, because the language must be preserved and developed. I get that. It's part of the nation's identity. But on the other hand, we should ask: who are we educating for? Are we educating for the state, so that people simply speak Estonian or are we educating for business, so that people can start companies and contribute to the state through taxes?"

Other problems: Demographics and a shortage of specialists

In addition to language barriers, all the experts interviewed described practical obstacles that make retraining difficult for working individuals. The primary target group often works in shifts and in physically demanding jobs. For this group, it's simply unrealistic to expect them to study Estonian and acquire complex technical skills after a full day of work. According to policymakers and educational institutions, there are also employers who lack the willingness, resources or habit of allowing their workers to attend training.

Experts involved in vocational education flagged a major concern: a shortage of teachers, which in turn leads to overburdening those who remain. It is extremely difficult in Ida-Viru County to find specialists who possess both practical technical skills and the required level of Estonian-language proficiency. In light of the region's declining population, education sector representatives noted that many young people leave Ida-Viru County to study elsewhere and may not return — further exacerbating the shortage of qualified local labor.

Education experts are also worried about the lack of information: since it remains unclear what types of jobs will actually emerge in the region as part of the green transition, it's currently difficult to provide learners and those retraining with clear guidance.

One education representative put it bluntly: "I'll be honest and direct: the Ministry of Education has thrown a wrench in our gears, because I'm running out of teachers. Even the teachers I still have — we're all stressed out, we're all burned out, we're overwhelmed. We have 1,100 contact teaching hours. Every one of my teachers has 1,100 contact hours per year. When the norm is 880, I don't have a single teacher working under 1,000 hours in the academic year."

Historical experience and a general lack of trust

Attitudes toward the green transition in Ida-Viru County are strongly shaped by the region's past experience with industrial and political upheaval. Experts pointed in particular to the transition of the early 1990s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many industrial enterprises were shut down or restructured, tens of thousands of jobs were lost and the region's economic and social security was sharply undermined.

This was followed in the 2000s and 2010s by several rounds of restructuring in the oil shale industry, including mine and production unit closures, technological modernization and mass layoffs.

Many experts emphasized that these changes were often marked by insufficient communication and a widespread sense that decisions were being made outside of Ida-Viru County, without regard for the local context. In practice, these reforms meant job losses, reduced income and heightened uncertainty about the future for many residents.

Several interviewees noted that such experiences may contribute to a perception that the current green transition is likewise a top-down process — one whose goals and practical impacts have not been clearly explained to the local population. If people do not understand what kinds of jobs are actually being created and if retraining fails to offer the same sense of security that long-term work in the oil shale industry once did, initial interest can easily give way to skepticism. Past experience directly affects how much trust people place in the current process, which requires close cooperation.

A local business representative shared: "When I talk to local entrepreneurs, I hear a lot of criticism toward the government. But when [government representatives] came to visit and those same entrepreneurs sat at the table and were asked, 'How are things going for you?' — 'Oh, everything is great. You're making such reasonable decisions… thank you so much.' And I was the only one who said I'm worried about competitiveness in general. The only one. Everyone else was singing praises."

What do the experts prioritize?

According to the experts interviewed for the study, the core challenges in Ida-Viru County lie not in the goals of the green transition, but in its implementation. They argue that the shift to Estonian-language vocational education requires a more flexible approach — one that takes into account learners' age, prior education and language skills. They also see a closer integration of language instruction and vocational training as essential to prevent the two parallel transitions from becoming competing burdens.

The experts further emphasized the need for earlier and more substantive involvement of employers, to ensure that training programs align with actual labor market needs. Increasingly, workplace-based and flexible retraining is seen as a viable solution — one that would allow people to learn without completely stepping away from the labor market.

The question, then, is not whether the green and language transitions are necessary, but whether they can be implemented in a way that doesn't turn them into insurmountable barriers for many people in Ida-Viru County.

The study on the green transition and retraining in Ida-Viru County was conducted in Estonia as part of the international Skills2Capabilities project by the Center for International Social Studies at Tallinn University. The research team included Eeva Kesküla, Joanna Kitsnik and Riste Lehari.

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