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The number of young people leaving Lithuania for greener pastures is rising, Lietuvos radijas has reported on its web site.

The national broadcaster said about one-third of people under 25 are now jobless.

Experts said better social conditions, improved education quality, and wages closer to western European levels would help stem the outward flow.

According to the report, new numbers show more young people left Lithuania in the first three quarters of 2009 than during all of 2008.

Unemployment is partly to blame for the wave of departures, but many also leave because post-secondary education has become cheaper abroad.

"Some just want to study abroad, but others choose foreign universities over Lithuanian ones because they're simply cheaper," Audra Sipavicine, who heads the Vilnius bureau of the International Migration Organisation, was quoted as having said.

Statistics also show that Lithuanians are now some of the youngest migrants in the EU.