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Finland after the boom: 'Not as bad as Greece, yet, but it's only matter of time'
With unemployment officially at more than 17% this once-booming city of 200,000 people has gone from a poster child of prosperity to a symbol of deepening cracks in the Nordic model.
“It’s not yet as bad here as Greece, but that’s only a matter of
time,” says Seppo, a 43-year-old software engineer who lost job along
with 500 others last summer after Microsoft, the new owner of Nokia’s
mobile devices and services division, abandoned Oulu.
Finland is ill-equipped to face up to globalization, Vartiainen says, while Finns are “extremely conservative and suspicious” of the market reforms he believes are necessary. The population over 65 is set to double during the next two decades; productivity has fallen behind Sweden and Germany, while trade with Russia has slumped owing to EU sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and the falling rouble. Vartiainen caused controversy in October when he appeared to compare the unemployed to “weeds” in a tweet.
Finland is ill-equipped to face up to globalization, Vartiainen says, while Finns are “extremely conservative and suspicious” of the market reforms he believes are necessary. The population over 65 is set to double during the next two decades; productivity has fallen behind Sweden and Germany, while trade with Russia has slumped owing to EU sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and the falling rouble. Vartiainen caused controversy in October when he appeared to compare the unemployed to “weeds” in a tweet.