SY CEO lists 5 reasons for reforms

“So far, the unions’ actions have been more moderate than their leaders’ words. I hope it continues that way,” Mikael Pentikäinen, CEO of Suomen Yrittäjät, the Finnish SME association, writes in his blog.

“The unions are spreading propaganda about why this government, too, shouldn’t reform the Finnish labour market. The unions want to continue — largely to preserve their own power — on the same path of avoiding reforms and frustrating business that Finland has been on for decades,” Pentikäinen writes in his blog.

In his blog post, Pentikäinen lists five reasons for a dire need for reforms.

1. Finland’s public finances are extremely indebted
“Borrowing billions more every year is unsustainable inter-generational policy.”

2. Finland still has excessively high structural unemployment
“Structural unemployment will only be reduced with structural reforms.”

3. In a couple of years, Finland has lost around 10,000 employer entrepreneurs
“Many small entrepreneurs are winding down or becoming single-person businesses because the risks presented by employment are too high.”

4. Around 300,000 25–59-year-olds in Finland are not in the labour market
“We need stronger incentives to get people into work so we have the resources to look after those who, for whatever reason, cannot work.”

5. The Finnish labour market is unequal
“We have two castes: the organized and the non-organized. It’s not right; people should be treated equally before the law.”

Pentikäinen says that delivering the Government Programme is important to sanitize the Finnish public finances and raise employment.

“When the trade unions attack the Government and labour market reforms, they are also attacking Finnish businesses, because businesses need labour market reforms to survive.

“If your employer does not succeed, your job is at risk. Many people are painfully aware of this right now, when many businesses are in difficulties and there are more bankruptcies than in decades. This is a pressing reason to bring the labour market reforms purposefully to their goal.”

Read Mikael Pentikäinen’s blog here

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