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Finland Employment
In 1986 the civilian labor force numbered a little more
than
2.5 million, of which about 5.4 percent were unemployed
(see
table 15, 1950-85, Appendix A). Less than 11 percent of
the
workforce worked in agriculture and forestry (down from
over 45
percent in 1950). Employment in industry and construction
amounted to about 32 percent, while the service sector
employed a
little over 57 percent. Finland's employment structure
resembled
that of other European countries, except that agricultural
employment was still higher than the West European
average, and
industrial employment had fallen more slowly in Finland
after the
1973 oil crisis than it had elsewhere. Economists
suggested that
both phenomena reflected Finland's relatively late
industrialization and that the country could expect
further
declines in the employment shares of agriculture and
industry.
As in most European countries, general unemployment
became a
serious problem during the 1970s, rising from about 1.8
percent
in 1974 to an average of about 5.7 percent between 1980
and 1986.
Official statistics showed that unemployment had fallen to
5.5
percent for the first half of 1987, but this figure had
resulted
from redefining unemployed workers over 55 years of age as
retired. The number of unemployed persons actually had
barely
changed between 1986 and 1987. Despite economic growth,
during
the early 1980s total demand for labor stagnated, but the
working-age population increased by an average of 1.2
percent
each year. Economists estimated that real GDP would need
to rise
by over 3 percent per year in the late 1980s and early
1990s just
to keep up with the growing work force.
While unemployment was less severe in Finland than it
was in
most European countries, policy makers considered the job
shortage to be the country's main economic problem. Young
people
suffered most from the rise in unemployment. In the late
1980s,
the unemployment rate for people between the ages of
fifteen and
twenty-four was almost twice the overall average. The
aging of
the population would tend to reduce the youth unemployment
rate
in the 1990s, but observers predicted that the total
population
of working-age persons would continue to rise for at least
a
decade and that unemployment would be a serious problem.
Although many workers could not find jobs, some
employers
reported difficulties in finding skilled industrial
workers; in
particular, construction and service workers were hard to
find in
the booming Helsinki area. Although certain skills might
be in
short supply, the work force generally was competent and
hardworking. Indeed, during the postwar years, the number
of
Finns with vocational training had increased fourfold, and
the
number of university graduates had increased fivefold
(see Education
, ch. 2). The graduates of Finland's management
schools
were well prepared to meet the challenges posed by an
increasingly international business environment. Some
managers
argued that young Finns showed more initiative on the job
than
their parents.
The government tried to cope with unemployment,
focusing on
youth joblessness. Aside from expanding public employment,
generally seen as a stopgap, state efforts included
retraining
programs for unemployed workers, advanced vocational
training,
travel and resettlement allowances, and subsidieq for
housing in
areas with labor shortages. A particularly effective
mechanism
was the nationwide employment exchange, which brought
together
people seeking employment with potential employers. In the
long
run, however, such measures could only serve as
palliatives.
Analysts believed that the state could best increase
employment
by following sound macroeconomic policies and by
facilitating
cooperation among the organizations representing labor and
management.
Data as of December 1988
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