HS analysis The government’s employment efforts are united by a trait that left-wing parties want to shut up to death

Government On Friday, it agreed on its latest employment measures, which it aims to get more Finns to work and strengthen public finances. Key decisions include changing the conditions for earning earnings-related unemployment insurance, tightening the job search obligation for those studying with unemployment security and raising the income limits for study support.

Read more: The earning security of many part-time workers is being cut, those studying unemployment are being forced to look for work – this is what the government’s new employment measures mean

The measures announced on Friday confirm the Ministry of Finance’s estimate of public finances by the end of the decade at an annual rate of more than 110 million euros, as the government had agreed in advance. The agreement was finally more painless than expected, which the government is very pleased with.

The scale of new activities is small. For example, the state will borrow EUR 7.6 billion in this year’s budget, so it will take almost 70 years to offset it with new employment measures alone.

If however, also taking into account the employment measures taken by the government in the past, the employment balance during the government term cannot be considered quite modest. The Ministry of Finance estimates that government decisions will strengthen public finances by more than € 550 million by the end of the decade. The government has also made decisions that the ministry estimates will weaken employment.

Of course, the government’s employment measures will not reverse the direction of public finances or end Finland’s indebtedness, but such large decisions can hardly be expected from an individual government.

Economist involved in the Ministry’s impact calculations Olli Kärkkäinen has evaluatedthat “few governments in Finland have taken such extensive measures to structurally increase labor supply”. Chairman of the Left Alliance Li Andersson went even further in its own assessment.

“With regard to the much-talked-about employment measures, the government has made decisions with greater impact than the previous bourgeois government or any previous government,” Andersson wrote on Twitter.

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The government is tightening the conditions for unemployment insurance.

Andersson the claim is difficult to prove true or false. In any case, the decisions of the government are not as non-existent as the Coalition Party has at times suggested, for example.

However, Andersson and other representatives of the left-wing parties are happy to fail to mention where the employment impact of the government’s actions will largely come from: the government will tighten the conditions for unemployment security and make being unemployed more uncomfortable.

The government has already decided to remove the so-called pension tube. The decision undermines the unemployment security of the elderly who become unemployed. The government has also decided on the “Nordic employment service model” that will come into force this year, in which the unemployed will in principle be required to apply for four jobs a month at the risk of losing benefits. Unemployed people should also attend meetings at the TE Office, especially in the early stages of unemployment, to promote job search.

On Friday, the government agreed that the job search obligations of people studying for unemployment security will also be tightened, ie they will be urged to apply for more work.

In addition, the government outlined the so-called “euroisation” of the employment security condition. This is mainly a technical change to the terms of earnings. The calculated employment effect of the reform still arises from the fact that due to the new calculation method, the earnings security of many part-time workers will decrease and their incentives to apply for more jobs will increase.

Sdp and the Left Alliance have not publicly acknowledged that the calculated effects of the government’s employment policy are largely based on patting the unemployed. It is a sensitive place for left-wing parties. They strongly opposed similar policies while in opposition. In the government, they are actually pursuing a similar policy, above all at the request of the city center.

For example, Sdp is repeated deniedthat the Nordic employment service model would resemble Juha Sipilän the “active model of the second” buried by the (central) government. The similarities between the models are large and obvious, as the model designed by Sipilä’s Board of Directors would have been based on a similar job search obligation. When the government decided on the job search obligation, the Left Alliance removed from the web for a moment his old petition to overthrow the second of the active model.

Former Minister of Social Affairs and Health of the Left Alliance Aino-Kaisa Pekonen denied the Ministry of Finance estimates that the abolition of the pension pipeline and other tightening of unemployment benefits will increase employment. The Ministry’s estimates are based on research literature.

Li Andersson, for his part, toured In an interview with HS repeatedly asked whether he believes unemployment tightening will improve employment as assessed by the ministry and researchers.

Left-wing parties do not want to say that they believe the patronage of the unemployed will get the unemployed to apply for jobs. However, Andersson came to implicitly acknowledge this when he said the current government has made “greater impact” employment decisions than any previous government. These calculated effects are largely based on the tightening of unemployment insurance conditions.