Competition for summer jobs is rising in Finland, with more than just young people and students seeking seasonal employment this year.
According to Maiju Karhunen at job search platform Duunitori, the unstable economic situation and poor employment conditions have negatively affected the number of available summer jobs.
"There are increasingly fewer jobs available while many people are looking for work," she explained.
Compared to last year, the roughly 22,000 summer jobs posted on Duunitori's site have been receiving significantly more attention from users of the service.
"These job postings have been read more than 13.4 million times. That suggests that many other people than just youths have been looking for summer jobs this time," Karhunen said.
Meanwhile, around 15,000 companies that belong to EK (the Confederation of Finnish Industries) are offering about 110,000 summer jobs this year.
"In a broader perspective, one can say that there's a reason to consider the summer job season as good if EK's firms offer more than 120,000 summer jobs," said confederation expert Mikko Vieltojärvi.
However, the number of job openings in sectors that generally offer summer jobs has decreased, he noted.
"This can be seen within the social and healthcare sector in particular."
Don't give up yet
Finnish retail giant S-Group is traditionally one of the biggest employers for summertime work, and has seen an increase in applications.
According to the retailer's recruiting unit chief, Annina Hyvönen, their summer job postings are open to everyone.
"We encourage people of all ages to apply for jobs," Hyvönen said.
Duunitori's Karhunen urged job seekers who haven't found summer work not to give up.
"As of mid-April we still have 2,600 summer job postings," she said.
The EK's Vieltojärvi also noted that people can still find jobs at the last minute.
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