This paper examines the impact of business cycles on unemployment rates in EU countries. The relationship between changes in gross domestic product and changes in the unemployment rate is referred to in the academic literature as Okun’s law. This law is of particular importance and the relationship has been extensively investigated in the scientific literature, but there are not many studies that analyse the European Union countries. This paper examines the relationship between the unemployment rate and real GDP in the EU-27. The data used for the study cover the period 2007–2019. The results of a correlation regression analysis provide evidence of the inverse relationship between the unemployment rate and real GDP as established by theory. The results also show that the relationship between business cycles and unemployment varies from country to country: in Lithuania and the UK, there is a very strong inverse relationship between the unemployment rate and real GDP. In Lithuania, the coefficient was –0.9377, and a similar coefficient was found in the United Kingdom (–0.9337).

Based on the results of the theoretical analysis, problems such as the aging population of teachers, the lack of attractiveness of the teaching profession and the shortage of teachers in certain subjects have been identified in the education system, as well as in some geographical areas. The recent reform of the teacher’s payment system in Lithuania was started in 2018, so the problem analysed in the article is relatively new, which leads to a lack of research, as apart from some statistics, analysts’ insights and forecasts, scientific research on this topic is insufficient. In this study, an independently pooled cross-sections model is used to assess the factors of teachers ’salaries. The results of the research show that after the introduction of the full- time payment system, the salaries of teachers in Radviliškis district did not increase. This was due to the reduction in the size of the workload following the introduction of the full- time payment system.