The proportion of Finnish employees on fixed-term contracts has increased and the phenomenon has become established in all employee groups in the 1990s, according to a survey by Statistics Finland published in autumn 1998.
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The proportion of Finnish employees on fixed-term contracts has increased and the phenomenon has become established in all employee groups in the 1990s, according to a survey by Statistics Finland published in autumn 1998.
According to a working environment survey published by Statistics Finland in autumn 1998, the proportion of Finnish employees on fixed-term employment contracts remained at 10% until the end of the 1980s, but since then has started to grow. In 1997, almost every fifth wage earner was working on a fixed-term basis, and a total of 192,000 women and 136 000 men were working on fixed-term contracts. The change concerned not only proportion, but structure as well. The fixed-term employees now tend to be women, aged over 30 years, well educated and working in white-collar jobs.
Fixed-term employment is no longer associated with young people or with the start of a career - rather, it involves an ever larger group of wage earners, regardless of age or the number of years at work. In 1990, over half of the fixed-term employees, both women and men, were under 30 years old. In 1997, out of the female fixed-term employees, only 36% were under 30, while the proportion who were over 40 had increased to more than one-third. For men, the corresponding proportion of those aged over 40 was 25%.
Though the proportion of fixed-term contracts has increased in every occupational group since a similar 1984 study, the sectors using the most - and the least - fixed-term labour are the same ones in both cases. Temporary work of this kind has always been most common in the fields of education, healthcare and social welfare. In all the studies, the least fixed-term labour is found in the trade and industry sectors.
On the effects on industrial relations of this phenomenon, it can be said that the use of successive temporary employment contracts is especially problematic for trade unions, whereas the employers want to have more flexibility in order to be better able to face fluctuations in the economic situation and in the number of orders.
Eurofound recommends citing this publication in the following way.
Eurofound (1998), Fixed-term contracts becoming widespread, article.
