Finnish job satisfaction collapsed at turn of millennium
Danish flexible employment protection model recommended for Finland as well
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The common Finnish sense of the meaningfulness of work plummeted at the turn of the millennium, reveals a Workforce 2025 report published on Wednesday by the Ministry of Labour. From 1994 onwards the Finns saw the meaningfulness of their work increase each year until the turning point of 2001, after which the enjoyment of work has been in constant decline. Between 2000 and 2005 the number of those unhappy with their work has doubled.
The report suggests that in working life there has been a significant qualitative turn for the worse. The reason is suspected to lie in the steady increase of elasticity to working life, whereby the position of the workforce has become more and more subjected to market conditions.
At yesterday's press conference the Minister of Labour Tarja Filatov (SDP) also pointed out the importance of the quality of management. She felt that it had a direct impact on how employees perceived the meaningfulness of the work they do.
The leader of the 70-stong group of specialists who compiled the report, civil servant Pekka Tiainen, believes that one factor that has led to increased discomfort is the reported mass lay-offs. They increase people's sense of insecurity at work.
The report recommends that the threshold to employ people be lowered while benefits during unemployment are improved. Still, the so-called "Danish model " should not be transferred verbatim and applied in Finland as such, the working group cautions. Job security should be improved by combining the flexibility of labour contracts with social security and active labour policies.
This is seen as a remedy against the constant labour market fluctuations.
During the term of the present government, employment has improved most among the 55 to 64-year-olds, followed by the 20 to 34-year-olds.
According to the working group, the improved employment status of the oldest and the youngest working-age people is primarily explained by the increase in part-time work.
Tiainen dismisses the notion that the number of hours put in by workers would have become lower despite the improved employment figures. In the light of a Statistics Finland labour force study, this is simply not the case, he says.
Finland's working-age population will turn to decline at 2010, but the authors of the report still believe in the improvement possibilities of the rate of employment.
A favourable employment situation could see a significant rise of up to 100,000 in the number of available jobs during the first half of the next decade. The employment rate would then be in the region of 72 per cent while unemployment could stand at four per cent, the report suggests.
Between 2010 and 2025, the number of working-age people - in other words those between the ages of 15 and 64 - will decline by 265,000, despite the positive migration balance of about 7,500 individuals each year.
The global division of labour will cause industrial refining and manufacturing to move from the traditional industrial countries to the new economies. Even the highest know-how will not guarantee success, for there will be know-how everywhere. Extensive specialisation will become imperative, the report concludes.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 15.2.2007 - TODAY |
 Finnish job satisfaction collapsed at turn of millennium
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