Confederations support campaign to reduce use of alcohol

Alcohol results in some two million days of absence from work every year in Finland. The harm caused by alcohol abuse is estimated at between 4 and 6.5 billion euro a year. Alcohol also contributes to a lot of dangerous situations which occur at work.

Expert doctor Kari Haring from SAK estimates that alcohol-related disability pensions may result in a major economic loss for an employee.

– An employee may end up with a disability pension at the age of 53 instead of working until 63 years. When salary turns to pension, this would mean in 11 years an income loss of 200 000 euro, Haring calculates. The figure is based on the average salary in Finland.

Problems caused by alcohol are still part of everyday life in working places, Haring says. These problems may partly be visible, but can also go unnoticed – or there may even be an unwillingness to recognise the problems.

– It would be good to consider and reflect, within the workplace, on the question of how we treat alcohol and how to use it when organising our own occasions. However, it should be said that nowadays only very few working places accept major alcohol use", Haring says.

Quite many do follow the appeal. According to the surveys of those Finns who do drink alcohol 22 per cent joined up to the campaign last year. People below 25 years of age were more eager to participate than those from the older generation set.

The Not a drop in January campaign has been organised annually since 2004. The initiator is EHYT, a preventive substance abuse work organisation set up to promote healthy ways of life.

Heikki Jokinen