In European comparisons Finland has also emerged as a country where fixed-term employment contracts are used especially widely. In comparing the EU15, Finland has been one of the two leading countries in this for a long time: only Spain had a higher number of fixed-term employees in relative terms in the 1990s. At the moment, when all wage and salary earners in the EU25 are compared, only Spain (32%), Poland (23%) Portugal (20%) and Slovenia (18%) are ahead of Fin- land (17%) in this respect. At the background of this study was the desire expressed even in the Government programme to reduce fixed- term employment relationships in the public sector by converting them into permanent ones. How- ever, the latest statistics continue to give cause for concern as they show that after a small decline the numbers and proportion of fixed-term employees have gone up again in the public sector in the first quarter of 2005.

The task of this study was to establish the present status quo of fixed-term employment in Finland.

The results indicate that fixed-term employment is seen as being associated with many difficulties in all sectors: lack of commitment to work causes problems to the employer and in the work community, while to the employees themselves it causes continuous uncertainty. However, the use of fixed-term contracts is sustained by the desire to avoid dismissals and codetermination negotiations, and financial uncertainty at the level of the organisation in general. The feeling that the tightened legislation has lead to increased use of agency workers instead of fixed-term contracts is gaining ground at workplaces. Agency workers are used more and more especially in the private sector to level out workloads at peak periods or even to recruit new permanent employees. However, the use of agency workers has its own, new problems arising from two parallel employers, high turnover and lack of commitment.

Statistical data and qualitative interviews were used.

Ministry of Labour. Labour Policy Studies no. 291.

The data from Statistics Finland’s Quality of Work Life Surveys allow fixed-term employment to be divided into two categories: conventional, and modern, fixed-term. Fixed-term employment re- lationships have traditionally been used for seasonal or piecework jobs. By contrast, modern fixed- term employment contracts are used for jobs and tasks that do not require them by nature. Two groups of modern fixed-term employees can be distinguished. The first comprises well-educated women employed in the public sector whose fixed-term employment often consists of successive periods as temporary substitutes. The other group also comprises well-educated, upper white-collar men aged over 40, whose fixed-term employment careers often consist of jobs of project nature or posts that are filled for a fixed period only. Comparing these two groups the situation with the male- dominated one clearly emerges as more positive in terms of position in the work community and personal feelings about fixed-term employment.

In the light of statistics it would seem that the women who ended up working in the public sector in the wake of the recession have not been able to stabilise their position on the labour market as easily as during the time before the recession, or as the women who were not recruited until in the 2000s. According to the 2003 Quality of Work Life Survey this applied to women between the ages of 30 and 39 who had worked for the municipal sector for three to nine years. Successive fixed-term employment contracts are especially common among women employees in the public sector. They are most widespread among fixed-term employees in health care occupations, of whom 43 per cent had already had as many as at least five successive employment contracts with the same employer.

The aim of the section of this report on the interviews conducted with qualitative methods was to establish how employers defended their use of fixed-term contracts and agency workers. Shop stewards were also interviewed at the same workplaces. This made it possible study connections between local factors and the phenomenon of fixed-term employment contracts. Fixed-term employment relationships continue to be a problem especially in the public sector, even though work-places are conscious about the issued guidelines concerning their conversion into permanent ones. External funding and project work have increased and are often used to defend the use of fixed-term contracts.

Ministry of Labour
P.O. Box 34
00023 00023
Finland
Phone: + 358 10 60 4001
kirjaamo.tyoministerio@mol.fi
http://www.mol.fi

15/11/2005

Anna-Maija Lehto, Maija Lyly-Yrjänäinen and Hanna Sutela

research

Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment > Working patterns

Flexible working