Helsinki (31.07.2014 - Heikki Jokinen)

Akava is a trade union confederation of affiliates for highly educated people. Redundancies have hit the IT-sector hard in Finland in recent years, mainly due to the problems surrounding Nokia smart-phone sales.

In July the new Nokia mobile phone owner Microsoft announced it is to cut 1,100 jobs in Finland. Almost half of these will be in Oulu, where the Nokia research and development centre was located. This will now cease operations altogether.

Another former Nokia unit will be closed soon in Finland. The US Company Broadcom announced in July that it would close down its modem unit. This means 430 redundancies in Oulu, and 600 in Finland as a whole.

"The forthcoming social welfare and health care reform and efforts improve the effectiveness of the public sector need optimal IT-systems and databases. There are a lot of competent IT-staff in Finland, their know-how could be used quickly as a resource in these projects", Fjäder says.

Searching for social responsibility

Fjäder wonders where all those companies have disappeared to that are willing to achieve genuine growth by investing in research and development.

"The only way the major companies are looking for profitable business today seems to be through redundancies. These companies should invest in their highly educated and innovative workforce, not make them redundant. If companies do not invest in research and development, it is really the beginning of the end for Finland."

Sture Fjäder also highlights the need for companies to show a real measure of social responsibility. The State has supported them very generously in the past.

Pertti Porokari, chairperson of the Union of Professional Engineers in Finland (IL) hopes that Microsoft could learn from Nokia who tailored special support packages for those made redundant.

"Similar responsibility can now be sought and demanded from the new employer", Porokari says.