Wages | The difference in pay for the same jobs can be up to a thousand euros in welfare areas

Wages harmonization, i.e. harmonization, is in its early stages in several welfare areas or has not even started yet.

The social and health trade unions hope that wages will be harmonized within the next year at the latest, even though the legislation has not guaranteed an exact deadline for harmonization.

The welfare areas started their operations at the beginning of 2023. The law obliges them to harmonize the salaries of their employees so that within the welfare area, the employee is paid the same job-specific salary in positions with the same level of requirements.

Salaries should be increased to the highest salary paid for the position in question.

“We continue to receive information that, on the social care side, this harmonization has not even started in all welfare areas, or if it has, it is in very small steps,” says the negotiation director of Talentia, a professional organization for those with higher education in the social sector Tuomas Hyytinen.

According to Hyytinen, a salary program was agreed upon in 2022, in which local installments are distributed to welfare areas, some of which should be allocated directly to salary harmonization. The last installment to be allocated to harmonization will be distributed next year, when the harmonization of salaries should be completed.

Before transfer to welfare areas, the task-specific salaries of the employees who were employed by the municipalities varied from municipality to municipality.

According to Hyytinen, there can still be a difference of up to a thousand euros in the monthly salary of employees in social care within the welfare areas where the harmonization of wages has not started.

“When the pay gap is this big, it is really worrying that the harmonization of wages is postponed and postponed until the last installment. If the amounts intended for harmonization are not fully allocated to wage increases at this stage, I am very afraid that this will not be achieved within the next year.”

In addition, Talentia has been informed that new employees are currently not hired at the level required by salary harmonization, but at a lower task-specific salary.

“By acting in this way, the welfare regions only increase the pain caused to them by harmonization.”

According to Hyytinen, in terms of social care, the harmonization of wages is lagging at least in the welfare regions of Satakunta, Southern Ostrobothnia, Northern Finland and Central Finland.

Welfare areas can decide for themselves in which order they will harmonize salaries. For this reason, wage harmonization can have considerable sector-specific differences.

According to the nursing association Tehy, the harmonization of salaries is already a good model in some welfare areas. For example, in the welfare regions of Central Uusimaa and South Savo, the harmonization of wages for workers in the social, health and education sectors has already been implemented in practice.

“In 2022, Tehy and Superin and [työnantajaliitto] The wage program between KT, in which it was agreed that the development of wages, the implementation of the wage system and the harmonization of wages will be carried out with the installments distributed to the welfare areas. In these areas, where harmonization has been achieved, the focus will now be on the development of remuneration,” says Tehy’s executive director Else-Mai Kirvesniemi.

According to Super, the Finnish home care and primary care association, salaries were already fixed last year, but harmonization is still badly underway in several welfare areas. I beat the lawyer Riitta Saarikoski according to the task-specific salaries of family nurses, there can still be a difference of hundreds of euros.

“Of course, we hope that employers would fix task-specific salaries for caregivers by the end of this year. However, salary harmonization is still very much in progress. I believe that the employer will correct the salaries next year,” says Saarikoski.

According to Saarikoski, the harmonization of salaries is a good model in those welfare areas that have previously operated as municipal corporations. Such welfare areas include, for example, the welfare areas of South Karelia, Central Uusimaa, Kymenlaakso and Päijät-Häme.

Employers do not, in principle, pay employees retroactive salary differences. If the harmonization is not implemented within a reasonable time, the trade unions can nevertheless start to negotiate also about retroactive claims.

“In this case, June 2025 has been agreed upon for the harmonization of salaries. If the harmonization is not yet complete by that time, salaries can be applied for retroactively from that date,” says Hyytinen.