The Employment Fund’s
Half-year Report 2022

Managing Director’s review

Economic growth got off to a good start but was slowed down by war

After two years of COVID-19 pandemic, the Finnish economy was growing strongly and employment developed favourably, reaching a good level in early 2022. The reduction in unemployment began to be reflected in the Employment Fund’s result, as unemployment security expenses decreased.

The economic outlook took a marked turn for the worse as Russia launched its military aggression against Ukraine in late February. The impacts of the war are reflected in the global and Finnish economy in many ways. The Employment Fund also revised its estimated result for 2022 downwards. Employment continued to develop positively in January–June, however, and in our most recent forecasts made after the review period, we have adjusted the outlook for the next few months upwards. It would appear that the negative impacts on the economy and employment of the war in Ukraine and its consequences will be felt with a delay.

Since the war started, we have increased our preparedness for various threats arising from it. We have intensified our financial monitoring and reporting to the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority further. We have also increased our preparedness level for cyber security threats and invested in our personnel’s coping and well-being in the challenging new situation.

Despite the exceptional times, we managed to achieve the targets set for delivering our statutory services in the first six months of the year. The customer satisfaction with the Fund’s services was good and, for example, the degree of automation in processing payment applications for adult education allowance has reached an excellent level. Thanks for their good work go to all employees of the Employment Fund.

Our liquidity has remained good, and the financing of unemployment benefits has been secured. We renewed our revolving credit facilities in early 2022, which helped to secure our liquidity further.

We improved adult education benefit services

In March, we launched a dedicated website for adult education allowance. Our aim is to deliver an even better service to our customers, simplify issues related to applying for the allowance, and spread information about the benefits of adult education allowance more widely among employees, employers and entrepreneurs.

In spring 2022, the degree of automation in processing adult education allowance payment applications increased by 14.8 percentage points compared to spring 2021. Thanks to our development work, approx. 74% of the payment applications were processed by automation.

We moved into new offices

We moved into our new offices in Ruoholahti, Helsinki in early January 2022. A multi-space solution which supports different modes of working and meetings was selected for the new premises. Our offices have facilities for quiet work, co-working and a telephone service. Fund employees enjoy working in the new office, and the feedback has been positive.