Municipal and welfare workers have agreed to a pay deal which will see wages increase by around four percent this year.
The wage hike is a full percentage point more than employees in any other sector of the Finnish economy, due to a five-year pay programme agreed upon last year which aimed at improving pay in the sector relative to others.
Following the agreement reached earlier this week, wage increases in the municipal and welfare sector will now rise higher this year and next than initially agreed upon last summer.
Overall, the deal will impact more than 420,000 employees across the country.
This agreement is on top of the pay deal reached last summer.
In addition, a lump sum of 467 euros will be paid to full-time staff, also in line with bonuses from other sectors.
Last summer, the parties pledged to take in account wage increases agreed to in comparable sectors, including the technology-, chemical-, and transport industry, all of which have seen new collective agreements in the past month.
Biggest pay raises in healthcare
Members of the umbrella organisation Sote ry, including nurses' unions Tehy and SuPer, announced that the agreement will raise wages by 6.7 percent this year and 6.5 percent next year in the healthcare sector.
"Wages in the health and welfare sector will rise almost twice as much as in the export sector. The path is now clear to close the wage gap and the future looks brighter. This is what Tehy and SuPer fought so hard for last year without yielding," Tehy chair Millariikka Rytkönen said.
Employees were represented by the Negotiation Organization for Public Sector Professionals (Juko), the Public Sector Union (JAU), as well as the Social and Health Sector Negotiation Organisation (Sote).
Would you like a roundup of the week's top stories in your inbox every Thursday? Then sign up to receive our weekly email.