Kouvola Region Vocational College

33 - 37 jobs
Number of planned job losses

Announcement Date

24 November 2016

Employment effect (start)

Foreseen end date

Description

Kouvola Region Vocational College will cut up to 37 positions following concluded employee-employer negotiations. The aim of the internal restructuring is to make the vocational college economically viable after the lowered budget from the Finnish government. In the first wave of redundancies up to 33 jobs will be cut, of which 6 are positions within administration, 21 are teaching jobs and 6 are general positions. An additional 4 teaching positions may be cut further on. Some of the redundancies will be executed during December 2016, but most employees will remain on staff until their contracts run out at the end of the spring semester, or in some cases at the end of 2017. The internal restructuring plan includes the abolition of unprofitable training programmes, more efficient use of facilities, staff reductions and other pedagogical and structural changes. In total, the savings scheme will result in savings of €4.35 million of which €2.55 million are personnel costs and approximately €1.8 million are real estate costs.

The ERM has previously reported on major cost-saving schemes at a number of Finnish universities and vocational schools following funding cuts from the Finnish government. The Finnish government is in total reducing grants to Finnish universities and schools by €600 million from 2016-2020, leading to redundancies at many of the 14 Finnish universities and a number of vocational schools and other educational facilities. The ERM has reported on ongoing and completed employer-employee negotiations at the Federation of Education in Jokilaaksot, JEDU, University of Helsinki, Aalto University, Åbo Akademi, the University of Eastern Finland and Lappeenranta University of Technology. 

Sources

• 24 November 2016: Kouvola (municipal press release)