The decrease was also much stronger than the one experienced on average in the OECD. Although starting from a higher level, the pro-cyclical cut in ALMP expenditure per unemployed was also higher than in Estonia and Latvia. Given the high volatility of Lithuania’s labour market, introducing some form of automatic link between ALMP budgets and labour market conditions, as in place in some OECD countries such as Australia, Denmark and Sweden, would help avoid reductions in spending per unemployed when unemployment surges and ALMP are most needed. In 2014, the ESF covered 47% of total ALMP expenditure, and 63% in 2015. This dependency on external funding limits the scale of ALMP and raises issues of continuity of the programmes.