The Service Sector in Finland: A Nordic Lilliputian

11.11.1999 Työpapereita 162 Petri Böckerman

Abstract

An international comparison suggests that the share of private services in terms of output and employment is rather low in Finland. This feature raises several interesting questions. What explains this particular feature of the Finnish production structure? How has the great depression of the early 1990s influenced the structure of private services in Finland? What kind of policy measures could be implemented in order to increase the share of private services from a long-run perspective? Finnish service employment also contains a number of other interesting particularities in an international comparison. Within a corporatist framework, these include a rather large public sector employer, high female participation rate, but on the other hand a low share of part-time work.