Negotiations on the Collective Agreement for the Commercial Sector will begin on 9 January 2020

The collective agreement negotiations will begin with both parties presenting their overviews of the sector and proposed changes to the collective agreement. For the Finnish Commerce Federation, the negotiations are led by Labour Market Director Anna Lavikkala.

According to Lavikkala, a key to the negotiations is for the contents of the agreement to match with goals and take into consideration the transformation of the commerce sector. The need for change rises, among other things, from accelerating digital development and international e-commerce, which tightens the competition also for Finnish commerce.

Commerce is a large employer and important for the economy

The commerce sector is diverse. The sector includes companies ranging from grocery stores to specialty goods stores and technical wholesale trade as well as from small kiosks to international listed companies.

Throughout the 2000s, commerce has constantly employed 290,000–300,000 people. Of these, 85–88 per cent are employees and the rest comprises of entrepreneurs and family members working in their companies. In 2018 commerce employed 292,000 people.

The sector has a considerable impact on the Finnish economy as it accounts for about 9–10 per cent of added value of the national economy. Commerce is also the largest employer in the economy. The sector is transforming with growing global competition, and Sweden, Norway and Denmark offer natural comparisons for the development during recent years. Commerce is one of the largest creators of added value in all of the Nordic countries.

Nearly as many women and men work in the commerce sector. The proportions of full-time and part-time employees have stayed essentially the same for the last decade. In the commerce sector, 75 per cent of employees work full time and a quarter work part time.

The Finnish Commerce Federation’s Negotiating World is at your disposal

A new service, Negotiating World was opened at the website of the Finnish Commerce Federation to provide background information on collective agreement and related negotiations as well as statistics and analyses regarding the commerce sector labour market. In the negotiation log we inform on the progress of the negotiations in general.

The main principle of the federation is to negotiate bilaterally with the Service Union United PAM in order to secure peaceful negotiations. Details about goals or the negotiations will not be made public.

The current Collective Agreement for the Commercial Sector is valid until 31 January 2020. However, after the expiry of the current collective agreement and before the entry into force of the new collective agreement, the provisions of the expired agreement will be applied.

Further information: Get to know Negotiating World here.

The Finnish Commerce Federation represents commerce – the largest sector of economic life. Commerce employs around 300,000 people in Finland. The Federation has around 7,000 member companies and represents both retail and wholesale commerce in industry policy and labour market lobbying. Kauppa.fi