Page 64 - Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 2 2017
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English Summaries Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 2/2017
English summaries
Ideas and policy practices of labour market policy have lived in di erent cycles
Heikki Räisänen, Dr.Pol.Sc., Adjunct Professor, Research Director, Ministry of Economic A airs and Employment
This article provides an historical outlook on Finnish labour market policy – both ways of thinking and policy practices. While celebra-
ting the 100th anniversary of independence in Finland this year, it is good to remember that in economic terms Finland was relatively inde- pendent already before becoming an indepen- dent state. The early beginnings of labour mar- ket policy started from municipal emergency work launched already in winter 1885–6 in Helsinki. The most remarkable ways of thinking in the beginning of 1900s were developed in the Parliament in 1907–14. Several important laws were prepared in the Parliament, but the Senate controlled by Russians did not implement many of them. The policy ideas and ways of thinking about labour market policy in the very beginning of 1900s was a solid ground for policy until 1950s and 1960s. These in uential early ideas develo- ped were not only thinking about the poverty aspects, but also labour market developments,
like job-broking and unemployment insurance funds. Ways of thinking were a ected by inter- national in uences, as well.
The vision on industrial Finland which was developed in the early 1900s was abandoned after the civil war and in the 1920s the idea of developing Finland was based on agrarian model. This had important labour market policy impli- cations, as well. Combating against unemploy- ment was very much based on relieving the sea- sonal variations, and forestry relief works was an important instrument. Unemployment rised to high levels in the 1929–34 recession. Then it was considered that besides the municipalities, the state should also have some role in relieving unemployment. The municipalities started reg- istering the unemployed, but there were impor- tant restrictions, like e.g. peasants who owned at least 3 hectares of farming land, should not be accepted as registered unemployed. The law on job-broking in 1936 was based on ideas of clas- sical liberalism and took distance from poverty approach.
After WW2 new ideas were developed con- cerning both legislation and organization. As did happen in the early 1900s, many of these new ideas developed in the 1940s were put into prac- tice decades later. These include founding the
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