Finland: government secures an annual increase in working time of 24 hours with no change in pay that will apply to the 300 sector agreements

Following the agreement in March 2016 over the government’s proposed competitiveness pact, which freezes salaries until 2017, raises annual working time by twenty-four hours, lowers the public sector holiday bonus by 30% (including health system and local municipalities), raises employee pensions and unemployment contributions, and lowers the equivalent contributions for businesses (c.f. article No. 9603), it just remained for the sectors involved to accept the provisions, and this has been done when, on 06 June, the last remaining sector, namely the metals sector, put its signature to the agreement.