“It’s really important, what you do every day,” says Viljami Wager, a 30-year-old artist who has not done any paid work for eight years. “It doesn’t work, if it is annoying to go to work every day, then the best part of each day is wasted. Why would you sell that?”
Within eight years the cohorts born in the 1980s and 1990s will become the biggest group in the Finnish labour market. At the same time, Finland needs an extra 150,000 workers. With youth unemployment now at an all-time high, there is a desire to get young people to work at almost any cost.
Last summer, the government programme came to include the young person’s social guarantee, which will ensure that under-30s are offered work, work experience, a study place or rehabilitation within three months of becoming unemployed.
YLE’s Eyewitness programme on Wednesday raised the question whether the problem with unaccepted jobs lies with the work on offer or the young people themselves. At least some jobs are viewed as having poor conditions.
'Cleaning isn't nice'
“If the paid work currently on offer is in crap jobs, then sure it isn’t nice to do,” continues Wager. “At least not in my opinion. Of course, some people might think cleaning is nice, but in my opinion it isn’t.”
YLE found that young people think like this increasingly often. Most over-65s and half of middle-aged people agree with the statement ‘work is the most important part of a person’s life’, but just one in four of the young feel the same way.
“I hope that younger generations will be able to find that kind of nice place in this society, where everybody is able to work and likes the work they do,” says job-seeking media studies graduate Antti Örn, 30. “Is it well-being, when everyone works from eight until four and needs a pill to get them up in the morning and one to go to sleep at night?”
Money is not the most important thing for this generation. For them, it appears to be more important that they find their work meaningful and enjoy doing it.