Minister of Labour wants to promote employment among partially disabled

Cronberg: Chronically unemployable should not be kept as employment exchange customers

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Minister of Labour Tarja Cronberg (Green) feels that public employment offices should focus on helping those for whom it is feasible to draw up an employment plan.
      In Cronberg's view, chronic substance abusers, those waiting for a decision on a request for pensions, and others seen as incapable of being employed should be dropped from the files of the public job centres. She feels that current practice is both humiliating for the individuals and ineffective in promoting unemployment.
      On the other hand, Cronberg is also calling for measures to enable those who are partly incapacitated by disability to join the effort to fight the impending labour shortage.
      Finland has 269,000 people on disability pension, more than 41,000 of whom have expressed a desire to work.
      "Many of them would want to work, and many would be able to", Cronberg says.
     
Employment for those with limited capacity could be promoted by extendingthe subsidies that are available for those in low-paying jobs to the partly disabled - in addition to young people. There are plans for a survey on the possibilities of those on disability pension to return to work. In addition to these plans for the immediate future, Cronberg foresees a basic income as the model for the longer term.
      She expects that the first steps toward basic income will be taken in a year. She envisions a simplified social welfare system that would combine incentives to work with a guarantee of subsistence for all.
     
Minister Cronberg says that the present time is "unique" for unemployed job seekers, with more jobs opening up, and with a 20 per cent reduction of long-term unemployment from last year. Still, there are many who are looking for work, whose skills do not correspond to the needs of prospective employers.
      To ease the situation, Cronberg calls for more efficient vocational training and more effective action by public employment offices. She wants more subsidised employment in the private sector, where most of the new jobs are emerging.
     
Next year, the Ministry of Labour is to be merged with the Ministry of Trade and industry. Cronberg appears to be eagerly awaiting the change, even though the location and organisational structure of the new super-ministry remain unclear.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helsinki to set up social enterprise to care for elderly (9.8.2007)

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