SAK releases 30-point employment programme

The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions - SAK has released an employment programme specifying thirty measures to improve the employment situation in Finland. SAK estimates that the actions listed in the programme would increase the number of people employed in Finland by between 20 and 30 thousand by 2007. According to current forecasts, the number of people in work will grow by about 60,000 between 2004 and 2007, so the SAK programme would have a significantly favourable impact on employment.

The employment remedies espoused by SAK include promoting labour mobility and measures to improve supply and demand in the job market. Collective voluntary employment efforts would seek not only to create new jobs, but also to tackle long-term unemployment dating back to the recession of the early 1990s and prevent labour market marginalisation of the unskilled population.

SAK would increase investment and boost the number of growth-oriented enterprises by channelling additional financing into these enterprises. The growth prospects of small businesses could be improved by such measures as increasing their eligibility for relief from value-added tax. Increased investment in service sector research and development would also boost service exports.

Temporary employment is clearly more common in Finland than in the European Union as a whole, even though the country has lower standards of job security than most other Member States. The SAK employment programme calls for measures to control the common practice of concluding successive temporary employment contracts. On the other hand, incentives must be provided for accepting short-period employment, for example by reducing the current waiting period for new unemployment benefit claims, which often deters claimants from taking up such short-term job offers.

Improving the employment situation will require substantial investment in training and education services: the process for student admission to higher education must be reformed, the standard of vocational education must be improved, and efforts must be made to reduce the vocational training dropout rate among young people. Efforts must also be made to help older employees to continue working.

An active employment policy of Nordic standard

The SAK action programme is based on the idea of an active employment policy. SAK believes that such a policy should seek to match the standard set in the other Nordic countries. This is not an objective that Finland will achieve next year, even if the new national budget provides for a substantial increase in funds set aside for employment policy measures.

The format for action in cases of redundancy that was agreed as part of the national incomes policy settlement last December is an important reform that may promote rapid redeployment of redundant workers. It is important that adequate funds continue to be budgeted for this policy reform: SAK insists that it must be possible for no fewer than 20,000 workers to take part in redundancy security scheme training programmes annually.

Efforts must be made to facilitate re-entry into the labour market for the long-term unemployed. The measures that this will require include greater flexibility in the terms of subsidised employment and an increase in the proportion of private sector employers. Other measures listed by SAK include increasing private enterprise in the sheltered employment sector and labour leasing by local employment offices to facilitate jobseeker employment in the initial stages.

Employment in urban growth centres is also hampered by a shortage of reasonably priced housing. SAK is pressing for incentives to encourage local authorities to make more land available for housing construction in growth areas. Consideration could likewise be given to establishing a State-owned company to purchase otherwise unsaleable owner-occupied dwellings in areas of falling population. This would eliminate an important obstacle to labour mobility.