Universities to hike admissions to dam youth unemployment

Universities in Finland are preparing to increase admissions and accept more students during the current application period following an appeal by Jari Gustafsson, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment for institutions of higher education to join a community effort and accept more applicants because of the coronavirus crisis. He said this would help stem rising youth unemployment, reports Yle.

The high-ranking civil servant said that the crisis has increased the number of unemployed young adults from 30,000 to 40,000. In addition to this figure, another 45,000 are set to graduate from university and enter the job market. He added that in normal circumstances, 10,000 young people would be employed in summer jobs. However, because of the current situation, private and public sector employers have not hired anywhere near that number this year. Moreover, traditional employment promotion mechanisms such as service vouchers cannot be used in a situation where jobs are at risk.

Keijo Hämäläinen, chair of UniFi, the organisation representing universities in Finland, said that higher education institutions want to discharge their responsibility to society. He noted that there was in any case an intention to significantly increase study places during the 2021 admissions campaign. Some additional places to be granted next year could instead be assigned this year due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Full report on the Yle site