Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
The Defence Forces started personel negotiations at the end of January. The negotiations conducted this year will affect a total of 6,200 persons. The job tasks of over one-third of permanent personnel, now numbering around 17,000 will change, be transferred or discontinued.
The negotiations relate to the need to decrease personnel by 1,200 staff years by 2012. A total of 700 staff-years must be cut during this and next year. Some of those affected will leave voluntarily to other jobs or retire, but some must be dismissed.
The Defence Forces estimate that 200 persons will be dismissed outright and 40 to 50 because they refuse to move.
The affected units are:
Savo Brigade in Mikkeli will be disbanded. One hundred tasks will discontinued and 40 to 50 persons dismissed.
Helsinki Air Defence Regiment in Tuusula will be disbanded, 90 tasks will be discontinued.
-A total of 520 tasks will be discontinued at the Defence Forces Materiel Command and storage functions around Finland, 390 in the next two years.
According to Kauppalehti the mentioned 520 jobs will be lost from the region by 2010 through the merging of depots and stores of the defence forces. The figures derive from an Armed Forces Defence Staff report concerning reorganisation of its Materiel Command.
As many as 270 jobs will be gone by 2008. The cut-backs will have the biggest impact on Pirkanmaa, where 170 jobs will be lost.
Central Finland will lose 120 jobs, Kanta-Häme 100 and North Savo 50 jobs. A promise has been made that the reductions will be managed through natural turnover and by offering work in other units.
According to Helsingin Sanomat negotiations are also already going on at the Defence Staff, headquarters of Military Command and Provinces and in a large part of the Navy.
In the Navy, the Kotka Coastal Command will be merged with the Gulf of Finland Naval Command. One detachment of the Archipelago Sea Naval Command will be disbanded. Naval Headquarters will be transferred from Lauttasaari to Turku.
The planned savings are based on a Government Report on Security and Defence Policy 2004.
Eurofound (2006), Defence Forces, Internal restructuring in Finland, factsheet number 63146, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/63146.