Rigaruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Banking & financial services
Swedbank, SEB, Citadele, Luminor
Riga is the largest banking centre in the Baltics by headcount, with substantial regional operations, risk and technology functions. The sector was heavily restructured after the 2018 non-resident banking clean-up and is now far more domestically focused.
IT services & product
Accenture Latvia, Tietoevry, Printful, Lokalise, Nordigen alumni
Printful and Lokalise are the best-known Latvian product exports. Alongside them sits a deep shared-services and outsourcing layer serving Nordic and German clients, which is the biggest source of English-language jobs.
Transport, logistics & the port
Freeport of Riga, Latvijas dzelzceļš, airBaltic
The Freeport of Riga is one of the larger Baltic ports and the reason a whole freight-forwarding and customs economy exists here. airBaltic's hub at Riga Airport makes the city the best-connected point in the Baltics.
Pharmaceuticals & life sciences
Grindeks, Olainfarm, Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis
A genuine industrial-scale pharmaceutical tradition — Grindeks and Olainfarm both trace back to Soviet-era research institutes and still manufacture and export at scale.
Timber, wood processing & construction materials
Latvijas Finieris, Latvijas valsts meži
Forestry is one of Latvia's largest export sectors. Latvijas Finieris is a global birch plywood producer, and the whole chain from forest to furniture is domestically held.
Creative industries & film
Riga Film Studio, local post-production houses
Riga's period streetscapes stand in for pre-war Europe in international productions, and there is a small but persistent production services trade around that.
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