Finland: Employment Trends
2012-02-01
by goinglobal.com
Metal, engineering, electronics and forest products make up the bulk of Finland’s export revenues. While the country has avoided the worst of the global financial crisis, the world slowdown has affected exports as well as domestic demand and has caused economic growth to slow.
General Trends
Finland (Finnish name Suomi) is a republic that became a member of the European Union (EU) in 1995. With a population of approximately 5.3 million, Finland is an advanced industrial economy. The capital, Helsinki, and the towns of Espoo and Vantaa form the fast-growing Helsinki metropolitan region, home to almost a million Finns. Other important towns are Tampere and Turku in southern Finland and Oulu in the north.
As a relatively small country, Finland relies on exports, with metal, engineering and electronics industries accounting for about 60 percent of export revenues, and the forest products industry for about 20 percent. Finland is one of the leading countries in Internet use, and boasts of more mobile phones than fixed telephone network subscriptions. According to the World Factbook, although Finland has been one of the best performing economies within the EU in recent years and its banks and financial markets have avoided the worst of global financial crisis, the world slowdown has hit export growth and domestic demand and will serve as a brake on economic growth in the current worldwide economic environment.
According to the Bank of Finland’s two-year forecast, Finland’s real GDP has stopped contracting. However, the economists predict GDP growth will be much slower in the immediate years ahead than it was before the financial crisis. Real GDP will not reach the level of 2008 even by the end of the forecast period in 2012. Finnish exports are expected to lag behind developments in the export markets. Private consumption growth will continue to be sluggish, and investment will become a motor of growth only towards the end of the forecast period.
Areas of Job Promise
The outlook for the coming months has improved in all sectors. The economy, though currently still in a weakened state, is forecast to improve over the next six months, and moderate growth figures are expected. There is also likely to be a gradual improvement in profitability. However, employment expectations remain cautious. Only in construction is the total number of employees forecast to start increasing in the coming months. The labor force in manufacturing and services shrank at the beginning of the year, although less than the previous year.
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