Redundancies drop to decade’s low in 2017

The year 2017 saw a record low number of employee layoffs, said the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK).

Similarly, the co-determination negotiations in 2017 involved fewer employees than in any other year, reported the local media.

A total of 3,276 employees were laid off in 2017, the lowest figure in the 10 years since SAK started compiling the statistics on work-place layoffs. The data is collected from the stock market releases and other public sources, but do not include figures from municipalities.

According to SAK Director Jouhkin Hannu, the decline in the number of redundancies points at the positive trend in the Finnish economy which started last year

In comparison to the scenario of 2016, the number of redundancies in 2017 fell sharply in many sectors. In 2017, the retail sector posted an 82 per cent slide in redundancies and the logistics sector registered a 78 per cent fall.

In the information and communication sector as well as in the education sector, redundancies dropped by 75 per cent, while the decline in the industrial sector was 63 per cent.

Layoffs, however, slightly increased in the financial and insurance sector.

A total of 23,060 employees were involved in 2017 in co-determination negotiations in which the need for redundancies was put at 5,871 persons. The figure is the lowest since SAK started to gather statistics on layoffs in 2007.