Finnish female employment hard hit in recession

The employment rate of middle aged women has declined significantly due to the recession in recent years in Finland, Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat reported on Thursday. While the male employment rate rose slightly, as many as 28,000 Finnish women withdrew from the labor market last year, said the paper. A statistic chart published by Statistics Finland showed that the employment of women aged 35 to 44 has continuously fallen during the period from 2009 to 2014. The number of unemployed women grew tremendously last year, according to Johanna Alatalo, an advisory officer of the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy. The sectors where more female employees are engaged in such as communication, finance and public administration, are more vulnerable to the economic downturn, said the daily. Jobs in the female-dominated public sectors have been constantly cut in the last few years, due to the spending cuts taken by the government. The reasons behind the female unemployment could also be attributed to studying, taking care of children and elderly and other household duties carried out by women, said Alatalo. Another potential reason could be that someone probably has given up job searching as "they believed that they couldn't find jobs." Despite the shrinking female employment, Lauri Ihalainen, Finnish Minister of Employment, said optimistically that the situation will not remain permanently. When economic situation turns around, the majority of women will go back to the labor market, particularly the applicants for jobs in the service sector, which is always short of labor force in Finland, said Ihalainen.