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SY proposes “job market Tinder” for small businesses
The latest Yrittäjägallup survey shows that only a small proportion of SMEs uses the TE Office’s recruitment services.
Only 13%, or just under one in seven, of SME owners have used the TE Office’s recruitment services in the past year. Of those who have, 69% have been satisfied with the TE Office’s services. The Yrittäjägallup survey finds that only 8% of businesses have used the state-run Job Market Finland.
“In the present employment service reform, the most important thing for SMEs is being able to respond to companies’ needs quickly. Jobs and workers have to be able to find each other more easily. Businesses also often need seasonal and project workers,” says Harri Jaskari, a vice president at Suomen Yrittäjät, the Finnish SME association.
Jaskari says that state-run employment services must become more agile.
“The digital Job Market Finland has been developed, but to business owners, it still feels oriented towards government. Suomen Yrittäjät has proposed a ‘job market Tinder’ for the new employment areas, using AI to match jobs and workers faster and better. Government data systems should serve as data pools which private app innovations could be integrated into,” Jaskari says.
In the past year, businesses which have hired workers have primarily obtained information about employees through a colleague or acquaintance (32%), an open application (32%) or some other channel (34%). Recruitment agencies were the route to a new hire for 19% of companies hiring staff, with the same proportion using Job Market Finland.
“Private recruitment agencies should be allowed to provide employment services more effectively. Now, the law is being changed to allow data on the unemployed to be shared with the private sector. This regulatory measure should happen quickly,” Jaskari says.
“Unfortunately, some employment areas only cooperate closely with educational institutes owned by the municipalities. So, they buy services from in-house companies, bypassing competitive tendering. Open and fair competition improves service quality,” Jaskari says.
Of SMEs, 40% have received open job applications in the past year. The sector in which most companies received applications was industry (59%).
Among companies employing over ten people, almost 90% have received open applications. Companies employing over ten people have also been the most active recruiters during the year (59%).
“The SME barometer shows that in spite of uncertainty, SMEs’ hiring intent has barely decreased. Of SMEs, 14% intend to increase headcount, while 12% intend to decrease it. The largest group, 74% of SMEs, intends to keep their headcount on the same level,” Jaskari says.
How the survey was conducted
A total of 1,077 SMEs responded to the Yrittäjägallup survey between 2 and 9 Jan. The confidence interval for the overall results is +/- 2.9 percentage points.
The survey was conducted by Verian on behalf of Suomen Yrittäjät.
You can read the results in more detail here.
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