Nearly 700 health and social services jobs at risk in Lapland and South Karelia
The wellbeing services counties of Lapland and South Karelia have announced sweeping job losses.
The Lapland health, social and rescue services provider, known as Lapha, has decided that a maximum of 365 employees will be made redundant. It has been conducting collective bargaining negotiations since October, covering the vast, sparsely populated region of northern Finland.
On Monday Lapha said the planned personnel impacts were significantly smaller than initially estimated.
In September, Timo Peisa, chair of the wellbeing services county’s regional board, said that a reduction of about 600–700 person-years would be needed. Some 8,000 employees were involved in the collective bargaining negotiations.
“The need for adjustment in social and health services was enormous, totalling 21.3 million euros. After the planned savings measures, the budget is still in deficit, but the savings measures curbed the growth of expenditure,” Lapha said in a statement on Monday.
No decisions on service cutbacks until spring
Nearly 1,000 workers will see changes in their job responsibilities, but decisions on how Lapha’s service network will be overhauled have been postponed until next spring.
“This means that we can prepare the changes carefully and assess their impact on residents and personnel,” the county’s director of health services, Miia Palo, said in the release.
In addition to redundancies, the number of person-years will be reduced by terminating fixed-term employment contracts. However it remains unclear how many such employees will be affected.
317 may lose jobs in South Karelia
Also on Monday, the wellbeing services county of South Karelia (Ekhva) said it may eliminate as many as 317 permanent jobs. Most of the redundancies are focused on healthcare staff.
According to the Lappeenranta-based Ekhva, a maximum of 152 permanent jobs will be lost in healthcare and 90 in social services, along with 25 in administration and support services.
The total number of dismissals also includes a maximum of 50 positions under threat of dismissal if those employees refuse to accept planned changes in their roles.
“The focus of the adjustments has been divided so that no statutory service is critically affected, but of course changes are coming widely across the board,” South Karelia wellbeing services county CEO, Sally Leskinen, said in a press release.
By law, Finland’s 21 wellbeing services counties were required to balance their books by the end of 2026. However last week the government decided to allow about 10 of them more time to do so, until 2027 or 2028.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: N.W.T. health minister pressed on response to Indigenous health-care report, CBC News
United States: Senators, including Alaska’s, sound alarm on cuts impacting Indigenous health care agency, Eye on the Arctic
