In November this year, 226,000 people were registered as unemployed in Finland, 36,000 more than a year earlier. Unemployment in the Nordic countries rose to nine percent in November, though the rate has been creeping upwards for some time, according to data from Statistics Finland.

The number of long-term unemployed, i.e. people who had been out of work for more than a year, rose to 102,600 this November. That figure is 13,400 more than a year ago.

However, according to Bigbank Chief Economist Raul Eamets, risng unemployment at the end of a year is normal.

"Finland's central bank, which recently revised its forecasts for this year and the year after, sees average unemployment for 2024 coming in at 7.2 percent, while next year Finland's average unemployment rate will be 8.3 percent. So in that sense, I wouldn't overstate the nine percent," Eamets said.

In Estonia, the unemployment rate was 7.4 percent in the third quarter. According to Eamets, Finland's unemployment rate will not have a significant impact on the Estonian labor market. For example, he said, Estonian construction workers began returning from Finland several years ago.

"Salaries in our construction industry have also risen, and it was not due to there being less work in Estonia that people went to Finland to work, but I think the main reason was that wages in Finnish construction were significantly higher. I think Estonians who have worked in construction in Finland are also looking at Sweden, where the economy seems to be picking up, unlike in Finland," Eamets said.

Nordecon AS board member Tarmo Pohlak is also of the opinion that there will suddenly not be a mass of construction workers returning home to Estonia at the first opportunity. He pointed out that those who have gone to Finland are likely to have firmer ties to the country that go beyond just paid employment.

There are also a relatively high number of Estonian doctors working in Finland. Katrin Rehemaa, secretary general of the Estonian Medical Association, says that the number of doctors in Finland does not affect Estonian doctors working there, as there is a shortage of medical staff in both countries.

"At the moment we have a rather difficult situation here. We are negotiating a collective agreement with the national conciliator and as things stand it is quite difficult to reach an agreement. In that sense, there is not a lot of faith here that the conditions in Estonia will get so much better that people will come back. Rather, we are afraid of the opposite, that if we do not get an agreement and our wages and working conditions do not improve, then it is more likely that things will start to move in that direction again," Rehemaa said.

According to Eamets, doctors and older people will be affected by the Finnish pension scheme. "If you have worked in Finland for a certain period of time, you will start to receive the Finnish state pension, and if you receive this state pension as a doctor, it will undoubtedly be higher than the pension of an Estonian doctor," Eamets said.

The fact is, however, that the Finnish economy is not doing very well at the moment. Next year's economic growth has been downgraded, and is currently forecast to be even lower than one percent, Eamets added.

"Rather, we are influenced by the overall picture of how the Finnish economy is going to do. Finland is one of our biggest export partners. What we are waiting for is for the Finnish economy to start growing a little faster, because then Estonian manufacturers and exporters will have something to sell. That is the bigger concern," Eamets said.

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