Helsinki (06.02.2014 - Heikki Jokinen) All together 60 municipalities had last year mandatory consultation with regard to possible personnel cuts with their personnel representatives. More than 300 person lost their job and some 7 200 people were on temporary lay-off. The average length of it was 13 days.
The figures are collected by JHL, the Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors, and based on the information received from the union activists around the country. In most of the municipalities the consultations concerned the whole personnel. Only in three municipalities negotiations were focused on a specific sector.
"Most of the savings municipalities were looking for were achieved in negotiations by making work more efficient, voluntary unpaid leaves and going to pension", says JHL Planning Officer Leena Peltoniemi.
"Most of the municipalities with consultations were cutting number of fixed term and temporary employees. Temporary lay-offs were used in 15 municipalities. The actual dismissals were done in six municipalities and in three consortiums with municipal background."
Finland has 320 municipalities. Their medium number of inhabitants is 16,151 but the median size is only 5,787 people.
The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions SAK calculated the total number of redundancies in 2013. In all other sectors than municipalities 14,500 employees lost their job.
JHL collects the information on situation in municipalities through their members' web service Kunta-alan tietokanava, Municipal information channel. The union activists inform there on all relevant development in their municipalities, like plans for outsourcing, redundancies, temporary lay-offs, municipal holding companies and re-municipalization of services.
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Number of redundancies still high (08.01.2014)