Finland's critical occupations, 2020

The current corona situation has increased attention to some occupations that are the most essential for the functioning of society. Spring 2020, the Finnish Prime Minister’s Office has published a critical occupations list (COL). Such occupations are critical, relevant, often hard-to-fill, and are highly in-demand. The list of critical areas includes health care, police, rescue, armed forces, railway operators, teachers, agricultural and forestry employees etc. Some of these occupations were defined as 100% critical and some as 50% critical.

Statistics Finland's has presented the employment statistics that are based on the data of the last week of 2018, when there were 2.4 million employed persons. In critical occupations were employed 735,000 persons, or 31% of all employed people. Around 23 % of them had a child aged under 10. Of those working in critical fields, 67 % were women (490,000 persons).

As the entirely critical occupations were defined armed forces (8,000 persons); agricultural and forestry workers (53,000 persons).

Examined by area, the highest numbers of persons working in critical occupations were living in Uusimaa (205,000 persons), Pirkanmaa (66,000 persons) and Southwest Finland (65,000 persons). Nevertheless, in relative terms, compared to all employed persons in the region, most representatives of critical occupations were found in Central Ostrobothnia (11,000 persons, 39%), South Ostrobothnia (30,000, 38%) and Kainuu (11,000, 38%). And only in Uusimaa (26%) the share of persons working in critical occupations of all employed in the region was under 30%.

In 2018, there were 170,000 workers in critical occupations with whom at least one child aged under 10 lived (23% of all those working in critical sectors). This group were interesting for investigation because in families with child aged under 10 was a risk that one parent may take temporary child care leave if a child falls ill.

The number of mothers of children aged under 10 working in critical fields totalled 118,000 (or 16% of all persons working in critical sectors). The most common occupational groups for mothers were nurses, health care assistants and child care workers. Correspondingly, fathers of children aged under 10 working in critical fields numbered 54,000 (7% of all persons working in critical sectors). The most common occupational groups for fathers were heavy truck and lorry drivers, livestock and dairy producers, secondary education teachers.

Source: You can find full statistic data at Statistics Finland website.