AFP, Helsinki :
Finnish labour unions representing around 85 percent of the workforce have accepted the government’s bid to increase working hours without a pay rise, officials said Friday.
Once one of the top performers in the eurozone, Finland has been struggling for nine years to put its economy back on track.
The deal, drafted by Finland’s pro-austerity government to cut the cost of labour, means that around 85 percent of Finnish employees will work 24 hours, three additional days, a year without extra compensation.
Employees will also pay a greater portion of social insurance contributions and holiday pay will be reduced in the public sector.
Finland’s economic woes first began in 2007 with the global economic slowdown and eventually led to a three-year recession between 2011 and 2014.
Finland’s centrist Prime Minister Juha Sipila, who had spent his first year in office pushing for the deal, celebrated it as “historic”.
“With this agreement we seek a major leap in competitiveness to make our country thrive. We will catch up significantly with (our competitors) Sweden and Germany,” Sipila wrote in a blog post.
The country’s powerful labour unions had never before in their history accepted any wage cut, but their leaders said it was necessary now to create new jobs.
In 2015, Finland emerged from the recession, with tepid growth of 0.5 percent, but the dark clouds over the economy have still not dispersed.
Last week Microsoft added to the agony with its announcement that it would need to get rid of the last 1,350 handset designers in Finland, whom it had acquired in 2014 from the Finnish telecom giant Nokia, the world’s former number one in handsets.
Finland’s economic woes are blamed on falling competitiveness, an ageing population and the economic problems of its major trading partners, Russia and the European Union.
Finnish labour unions representing around 85 percent of the workforce have accepted the government’s bid to increase working hours without a pay rise, officials said Friday.
Once one of the top performers in the eurozone, Finland has been struggling for nine years to put its economy back on track.
The deal, drafted by Finland’s pro-austerity government to cut the cost of labour, means that around 85 percent of Finnish employees will work 24 hours, three additional days, a year without extra compensation.
Employees will also pay a greater portion of social insurance contributions and holiday pay will be reduced in the public sector.
Finland’s economic woes first began in 2007 with the global economic slowdown and eventually led to a three-year recession between 2011 and 2014.
Finland’s centrist Prime Minister Juha Sipila, who had spent his first year in office pushing for the deal, celebrated it as “historic”.
“With this agreement we seek a major leap in competitiveness to make our country thrive. We will catch up significantly with (our competitors) Sweden and Germany,” Sipila wrote in a blog post.
The country’s powerful labour unions had never before in their history accepted any wage cut, but their leaders said it was necessary now to create new jobs.
In 2015, Finland emerged from the recession, with tepid growth of 0.5 percent, but the dark clouds over the economy have still not dispersed.
Last week Microsoft added to the agony with its announcement that it would need to get rid of the last 1,350 handset designers in Finland, whom it had acquired in 2014 from the Finnish telecom giant Nokia, the world’s former number one in handsets.
Finland’s economic woes are blamed on falling competitiveness, an ageing population and the economic problems of its major trading partners, Russia and the European Union.
