HELSINKI: Industrial and retail statistics gave us a reason to expect something clearly better. The numbers can of course be specified later, but Finland’s economic growth seems to be slowing down.”
“Flexibility and mobility issues in the labour market have led to relatively high long-term unemployment. Despite Finland’s strong cyclical growth in 2017, unemployment remained at 8.6 per cent in 2017, one percentage point higher than the EU average of 7.6 per cent,” the credit rating agency said.
It also cast doubt over the attainability of the employment rate target of 72 per cent by predicting that the preparedness to carry out the necessary reforms is likely to wane as political parties start posturing for the upcoming elections.