The communities suffered from a negative image as not being entrepreneur-friendly.

In an attempt to diversify and intensify the occupational expertise of the communities of Rantakylä and Utra, the authorities of Joensuu actively pursued their objective of attracting new companies to the area. In co-operation with its partners, the city of Joensuu elaborated a tailor-made package based upon the requests of the company. In return, the company would recruit its personnel primarily from the Rantakylä-Utra area.

In the spring of 1998, Radiolinja established a new call centre specialised in customer service. At the beginning of the project the target had been to create about 60 new jobs. Surpassing by far this target number, the project has employed a total of 113 people. Eighty-four of them are full-time while another 29 were hired part-time. In particular, the city of Joensuu put special emphasis on hiring job seekers. In fact, out of the 113 people who were hired 65 were unemployed at the time.

The encouraging results of the project in its early days prompted Radiolinja to reinforce its business activities in the Joensuu area and to hire new personnel during the course of 1999.
By quickly responding to the offers of Radiolinja and coordinating the actions of the project's various partners, the City of Joensuu provided the necessary ingredients for strengthening Joensuu's business structure.

The partners of the Radionlinja project include the URBAN programme, the Labour Market Department of the T&E Centre and the business unit of the city of Joensuu.

The success of the Radiolinja call centre provided the necessary impetus for another such programme to be launched. The Mirafon Call Centre Oy thus came into being to provide call centre services for various companies in Finland. By the end of 1999 the programme had hired 40 part-time and 20 full-time employees who received customer service training.

The URBAN Programme co-financed the recruitment and training of personnel and the investments in equipment and machinery. The project is a supplement to the call centre established by Radiolinja and together they serve as a sort of hub for call centre activities.

Inhabitants, businesses

Total costs were 5 396 695 euros, to which the EU contributed 4 048 028 euros.

The Project was part of the URBAN programme of the EU.

Carelian
Ilkka Nykänen, tel. +358 13 267 5424

01/03/1998

case

Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment > Urban economy

Employment, Business support