Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2022, published 111st ILC session (2023)

Employment Service Convention, 1948 (No. 88) - Finland (Ratification: 1989)

The Committee notes the observations made by the Federation of Finnish Enterprises (SY), the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions (SAK), the Finnish Confederation of Salaried Employees (STTK), the Confederation of Unions for Academic Professionals in Finland (AKAVA) and the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK), transmitted together with the Government’s report.

Article 1 of the Convention. Contribution of the employment service to employment promotion. The Government refers in its report to the Local Government Pilots on Promoting Employment (1269/2020), which began on 1 March 2021 and will end on 30 June 2023 and involve a total of 25 areas and 118 municipalities. The Government is transferring responsibilities for employment and economic development services (TE services) to municipalities and strengthening their role as strategic partners. The pilot projects aim to increase the effectiveness of employment promotion efforts through enhanced coordination of the resources, skills and services of the State and municipalities. In this regard, a funding model is to be created for municipalities to enable them to develop their employment promotion activities in order to increase employment by 7,000 to 10,000 people, including for all jobseekers under the age of 30 and all immigrants and foreign-language speakers. The Government also refers to temporary amendments made to employment legislation and regulations, in particularly amendments made to Chapter 2, section 4, subsection 2 of the Act (1456/2016), which requires the authorities to provide jobseekers with the interview opportunities at regular intervals. Regarding the activities of the public employment service, the Committee notes the information provided by the Government drawn from the annual Employment Service Statistics. In particular, it notes that, in 2020, the number of job vacancies decreased, while the monthly registration of unemployed jobseekers increased up to 30 per cent compared to the previous year. In respect of the “Nordic job search model”, which seeks to reform both the provision of employment services and the criteria for receiving unemployment benefits as part of the implementation of labour market policy, the Committee notes the observations of EK, which emphasizes that the Nordic model should make use of private employment services, which play a significant role in matching labour supply and demand. The EK further observes that a portal should be built for private providers of TE services to give them access to the pool of applicants in public TE services. With regard to the public employment service (PES) reform, the Committee notes the information provided by the Government in its report on the application of the Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122), in particular the implementation of the TE-Digi project, which aims to modernize the electronic service system of the TE public services to better respond to the future needs of the employment services and the investment plan of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and KEHA Centre for the development of new knowledge-based management and operating models in TE services. The Committee requests the Government to continue to provide updated, detailed information, including disaggregated statistical data, showing the impact of the reforms on effective recruitment and placement of workers and on specialization by occupation or branch of activity within the employment services to respond adequately to the needs of jobseekers, including for groups in vulnerable situations, such as persons with disabilities and other groups, particularly those vulnerable to intersectional discrimination. It further requests the Government to provide information on the measures adopted or envisaged to facilitate effective collaboration between the public employment service and private employment agencies in order to achieve the optimal functioning of the labour market and contribute to the objective of full employment.

Article 9. Staff of the employment service. In response to the Committee’s previous comments, the Government indicates that the human resources in the Employment and Economic Development Offices (PES) have increased since 2017. In this respect, the Committee notes the statistics provided by the Government, which show that, in 2021, 3,963 persons were working in employment and economic development services (TE services). It further notes that the local government pilots on employment launched in March 2021 will change the structure of the Employment and Economic Development Offices of the PES, by transferring TE staff to municipalities. With regard to PES staff, the Government indicates that the Nordic labour market service model, which entered into force in 2022 and is designed to streamline and customize the job search process, will increase the resources for TE services by €70 million a year. More than 1,000 experts will be hired to provide customer service, representing an increase of 40 per cent compared with the resources of TE Offices in 2019. In this regard, the Federation of Finnish Enterprises (SY) observes that, while the Nordic job search model could improve the efficiency of the PES, the operations of the PES must be closely monitored and evaluated. In addition, the SAK, the STTK and AKAVA observe that labour market organizations are concerned about how high-quality services can be guaranteed for the unemployed, even with the additional resources mentioned by the Government. They emphasize that it is the quality of services and not their quantity that matters in meeting the needs of unemployed persons. The Committee requests the Government to communicate updated information on measures taken or envisaged to provide specialized training to the new and existing public servants in the public employment service to allow them to ensure a service which responds to the concerns of all unemployed persons, including disadvantaged categories of persons such as young people, older workers, migrant workers, workers with disabilities and those belonging to groups vulnerable to intersectional discrimination.