🇱🇻 Latvia

Latvia's population has contracted from ~2.5M at EU accession to ~1.8M today — one of the steepest peacetime demographic declines in the EU. The 'falling' youth unemployment from 13.9% to 12.6% is precisely the cope described in the framework: the most mobile, AI-ready young Latvians have already emigrated to Ireland, the UK, Germany, and Scandinavia, shrinking the denominator and flattering the headline. Old-age dependency at 34.7% combined with a median age of 44.4 means Latvia is structurally old before it is structurally rich, and AI-driven automation of the very service-sector jobs (fintech, transit administration, public sector) that employ returning migrants will accelerate the next wave of youth exit.

Latvia adopted a national AI strategy in 2020 with limited funding and modest targets — heavy on education rhetoric, light on industrial policy. The country has no meaningful retraining infrastructure for the scale of transition facing a 1.8M-population economy. Brussels handles the serious digital regulation; Riga handles the press releases.