Finland is making preparations for the transfer of employment and economic development services (TE services) to municipalities in 2024.
At its meeting of 31 August 2021, the Ministerial Working Group on Promoting Employment decided on the principles that relate to the employment base of municipalities providing services, cooperation between municipalities and the transfer of staff.
“Transferring TE services to municipalities is a major and historic reform, which aims to strengthen employment through services that are better targeted and tailored to meet the needs of local labour markets. The transfer of TE services to municipalities brings them closer to customers. Giving the responsibility for employment, municipal education and business services to one organiser promotes the objective of faster employment,” Minister of Employment and chair of the ministerial working group Tuula Haatainen says.
The working group decided that the services would be transferred to a municipality or a cooperation area consisting of several municipalities, which have an employment base of at least 20,000 persons. This corresponds to the minimum size of the local government pilots on employment, which are currently under way. This would ensure that sufficient resources are available for organising TE services and that the services are equally accessible to jobseekers throughout Finland.
If a municipality does not fulfill the criteria for organising services alone, it should form a cooperation area with one or more municipalities. The cooperation areas should be functional in terms of the labour market and employment and they should border each other.
Customers and staff
Ministries, TE services, ELY Centres, KEHA Centre, municipalities and other stakeholders are currently preparing the transfer of TE services together. As preparations continue, the Ministerial Working Group on Promoting Employment will outline more policies.
“The reform has been prepared in good cooperation with various operators and this close cooperation is set to continue throughout the preparation,” Haatainen says.
The reform will cause changes in regional administration. To the extent that the services of TE Offices are not transferred to municipalities, they will be transferred to ELY Centres or the KEHA Centre.
“The transfer of services will be prepared in a controlled manner, taking account of customers and in accordance with good personnel policy, so that TE Offices can remain operational until the final transfer of duties,” Haatainen adds.
The working group stated at its meeting that the staff of TE Offices would be transferred to municipalities applying the transfer-of-business principle in accordance with the Civil Servants Act along with their duties and, as a rule, with existing job descriptions.
“Our starting point is to safeguard the staff’s positions. Skilled, motivated and committed staff will continue to be the most important asset in providing effective and impactful TE services,” Minister Haatainen says.
More resources will be allocated to TE services during 2022. The Nordic labour market service model, which the Government decided on earlier, will increase the resources of TE services by 70 million euros a year. More than 1,000 experts will be hired for customer service. This represents an increase of 40% compared with the resources in 2019.
