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OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS

FINLAND 2025

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

MAY 2025

• Finland has proven resilient in the face of adversity but must reinforce the underpinnings for long-term prosperity

• Continuing fiscal consolidation, while bolstering structural reforms to revive innovation and productivity

• Raising the higher education attainment rate

• Enriching human capital with more foreign talent

• Accelerating the transition to a net-zero-carbon economy

2 . OECD ECONOMIC SURVEY OF SPAIN 2023 – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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The full book is accessible at OECD ECONOMIC SURVEYS: FINLAND 2025 OECD Publishing, Paris https://doi.org/10.1787/985d0555-en

FINLAND HAS PROVEN RESILIENT IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY BUT MUST REINFORCE THE UNDERPINNINGS FOR LONG-TERM PROSPERITY

Strong institutions and policy frameworks, including longstanding efforts to be prepared for external headwinds, coupled with an innovative, flexible private sector have helped the country weather the global energy shock in 2022 and sharply rising geopolitical tensions. The economy is recovering but Finland needs reforms to realise its huge potential in the transition to net zero that can underpin a long-term rise in living standards.

The economy and society have shown remarkable resilience to the severe economic and security shock resulting from Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. Finland has maintained the second cheapest electricity in Europe and Finnish firms have efficiently replaced imports from Russia. The banking system has coped well with a sizeable real estate sector downturn. The highly redistributive tax and welfare system has limited the fallout for the most vulnerable in society.

Finland can build a stronger, more sustainable recovery by realising its high potential in the transition to net zero emissions. A long tradition of sustainable management of vast forests and improving industrial energy efficiency, engineering prowess and enormous potential to generate more renewable electricity provide solid foundations

to boost productivity growth, jobs and meet environmental goals. Sustainable growth is key to generating public revenue for addressing the already apparent challenges of a rapidly ageing population.

Realising this potential is impeded by a lack of regulatory recognition of emissions reduction technologies and shortages of highly skilled labour and capital to help Finland’s firms scale up low emissions innovations. Reforms to boost tertiary attainment rates, make the most out of highly skilled migrants, crowd in private green investment and introduce frontier emissions reduction, storage and trading policy frameworks will be needed to realise the full advantages of net zero.

CONTINUING FISCAL CONSOLIDATION, WHILE BOLSTERING STRUCTURAL REFORMS TO REVIVE INNOVATION AND PRODUCTIVITY

Economic activity is projected to grow by 0.7% in 2025 and 1.1% in 2026, driven by declining interest rates. However, the near-term recovery is subject to high uncertainty from geopolitical tensions and trade policy risks. Improving public spending efficiency, reducing non-productivity-enhancing state-aid and addressing labour market mismatches, raising skill levels, increasing access to capital market finance and fostering innovation and investment are critical to sustaining the recovery and reviving productivity growth.

Finland’s economy is gradually recovering after the sharp contraction in late 2023, but growth lags behind that of Nordic peers and the OECD average (Figure 1). Activity picked up in the first three quarters of 2024, driven by public investment and net exports, but it stalled in the fourth quarter due to weak private consumption. Overall, real GDP contracted by 0.1% in 2024. Inflation fell during 2024 owing to lower energy prices and feeble activity and in the first half of 2025 stabilised around 2%. Both exports and imports recovered modestly in 2024, however, consumer and business confidence remained subdued. The unemployment rate stood at 9.5% in March 2025, up from 8.4% a year earlier.

Real GDP is set to grow by 0.7% in 2025 and 1.1% in 2026 (Table 1), supported by declining interest rates, falling borrowing costs and rising purchasing power, although anaemic business and household confidence and continued weakness in the construction sector may constrain the recovery. Inflation is anticipated to remain around 2%, with upward pressure from rising import and wage costs offset by lower energy prices.

The recovery is fragile and risks are skewed to the downside, primarily stemming from geopolitical and geoeconomic fractures. Further escalation of cyberattacks and infrastructure sabotage ascribed to Russia and more broadly growing international security threats could undermine consumer

Figure 1. Finland’s post-covid recovery has lagged that of peer countries

Index, 2019Q1=100

Source: OECD, National Accounts database.

and investor confidence. Weaker than foreseen growth among key trading partners, continuation of exceptionally high international trade policy uncertainty and further tariff hikes could weigh on exports and business activity.

The financial sector has remained resilient, with well-capitalised institutions and liquidity in the face of a strong downturn in the real estate market but the business sector remains too reliant on bank finance. Vulnerabilities persist for construction, where non-performing loan ratios have increased. The authorities should closely monitor risks and maintain readiness for targeted interventions if needed. Moreover, the increasing frequency of cyberattacks highlights the need to bolster resilience through comprehensive risk management and proactive measures. At the same time, enhancing firms’ access to capital markets including private equity would help foster greater adoption of new technologies and boost productivity.

Finland's fiscal outlook faces pressures on multiple fronts. In 2024, the fiscal deficit widened to 4.4% of GDP and public debt rose to around 82% of GDP, reflecting increased defence, health and pension expenditures. The government took important steps to address the deficit through consolidation measures in 2024, including tax increases and spending cuts, particularly in social welfare programmes, and introducing regular spending reviews. However, fiscal policy changes announced in April 2025, including income and corporate tax reductions, as well as an increase in defence expenditure to 3% of GDP by 2029, will slow the pace of consolidation. Considering only the direct fiscal impact of the April 2025 measures before any growth-enhancing effects of the tax cuts, the size of which is uncertain, ongoing consolidation efforts are expected to lower the fiscal deficit by around half a per cent of GDP per annum over 202526. While this incremental pace is appropriate given the weak state of the economy, the government

Table 1. Real GDP is set to recover in 2025 and 2026

Annual growth rates, %, unless specified

Source: OECD Economic Outlook Database.

will need to reinforce its fiscal consolidation efforts. European Central Bank monetary policy easing is providing Finland some more space to do this while maintaining growth.

Increasing spending efficiency and reducing state-aid for firms are key. Greater efficiency is especially required within the wellbeing services counties introduced in 2023, which took over responsibility for social welfare and healthcare services from municipalities. In 2024, the counties continue to face budget deficits, despite their own efforts in cutting staff numbers and raising client fees. Strengthening the central government’s financial steering of wellbeing services counties facing significant financial pressures is warranted. Finland could also grant counties limited taxlevying powers. State-aid to firms amounts to around EUR 1.6 billion, or 20% of corporate tax revenue. Reducing non-productivity-enhancing state-aid to firms and further aligning reduced VAT rates with the standard rate would also support fiscal consolidation.

Finland faces long-term fiscal pressures driven by population ageing, which tends to push up spending on pensions, healthcare and long-term care (LTC). Between 2009 and 2022, age-related social protection spending doubled, contributing to a structural gap between revenue

and expenditure. Continued efforts to expand means-tested benefits and encourage homebased services over institutional care are essential to manage LTC cost pressures. Reforms to raise labour market participation among older workers and adjust contribution rates are needed to ensure pension system sustainability.

Finland’s labour market reforms aim to boost employment by 100 000 by 2027 through measures such as lower labour taxes and tighter unemployment benefits. While these changes support full-time work, more can be done to boost labour market participation and employment of women with young children through equal parental leave and better childcare incentives. This will help close the large gender wage gap.

The recovery will be modest unless productivity growth is boosted. Trade disruptions particularly with Russia and challenges in scaling frontier firms have further constrained productivity growth, which had slowed since the Global Financial Crisis and the collapse of Nokia. Reviving productivity growth requires boosting innovation, alleviating shortages of high-skilled labour, and stimulating greater private investment in the green industrial transition. Improving anti-corruption measures by ensuring the new transparency register works would further improve the business environment.

RAISING THE HIGHER EDUCATION ATTAINMENT RATE

Over the past two decades the higher education attainment rate has stagnated, while it has continued to climb in many other countries. This contributed to labour shortages, which are almost all for highly skilled positions, holding back growth. Higher education places are oversubscribed and reforms are required to match places more efficiently with student preferences and free resources for first-degree-entrant places.

Finland’s higher education attainment rate rank fell from one of the highest in the OECD to 30th between 2000 and 2023. Younger age cohorts aged below 35 are now less well qualified than older ones. The reform allowing students to accept only one study place appears to be paying off and enrolment rates are rising, but the government should do more to meet its target of raising the attainment rate from 40% to as close to 50% as possible by 2030 to help alleviate high-skilled labour shortages (Figure 2).

The higher education system is of high quality, but supply of places is constrained and as a result applicants have a low chance of getting a place. The system is 90% publicly funded, one of

the highest rates in the OECD and there is broad public opposition to introducing tuition fees widely. Given tight fiscal constraints, expanding places requires freeing up existing resources and increasing business funding of higher education research, which is low by international standards.

Around 10% of university enrolments are by those who already have a degree at the same level. The supply of, and demand for, post-graduate shorter qualifications needs to be expanded. Students could be encouraged to take them up by keeping them free, while charging tuition-fees for second degrees at the same level, which have little value in the labour market.

Figure 2. Finland’s tertiary education attainment rate is lower than in peer countries

ENRICHING HUMAN CAPITAL WITH MORE FOREIGN TALENT

While Finland has made progress in attracting high-skilled talent, including streamlining its residence permit process, challenges persist. To address barriers, Finland should expand language programmes, provide more work experience opportunities for foreign students and enhance integration efforts.

High-skilled foreign workers can play a crucial role in addressing labour shortages and advancing key industries, particularly in sectors like information and communication technology and green energy. Augmenting human capital by attracting and retaining skilled immigrants to complement domestic highly skilled labour would help to boost innovation, productivity and growth.

Despite their potential, a lack of language proficiency remains a major barrier to the successful integration of foreign workers into the labour market. Less than half of immigrants in Finland are proficient in Finnish or Swedish and many employers require fluency in one of these languages. Expanding language training programmes tailored to high-skilled professionals and encouraging more flexible workplace language policies will further support foreign workers’ participation and integration into the labour market.

While the number of foreign students in Finland has increased, around one-third of foreign tertiary graduates leave Finland within a year of graduation. This low retention rate reflects limited language skills and insufficient professional experience. Expanding initiatives like mentorship programmes, job fairs and employer matching services, while strengthening partnerships with firms, educational institutions and municipalities, would help foreign graduates transition more seamlessly into the workforce.

Education outcomes for children from immigrant families are poor, hindering integration. The 2022 PISA results reveal that more than 60% of firstgeneration students with an immigrant background lack the reading skills necessary for further education or workforce participation. Enhancing education support for immigrant children, including reforms to the Finnish as a Second Language curriculum, would help foster long-term integration and social cohesion.

ACCELERATING THE TRANSITION TO A NET-ZERO-CARBON ECONOMY

Like many OECD countries, Finland faces the simultaneous tasks of reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), adapting to a warmer world and reversing the trend of weakening productivity growth. Meeting these challenges requires increasing the size of forest carbon sinks, better policy recognition of biodiversity and overcoming financing, regulatory and skills barriers to decarbonising industry.

Finland is not on course to meet its ambitious landuse emissions mitigation and biodiversity targets. Higher harvesting and better measurement mean Finland’s forests (including soil emissions) are a net emitter of GHG. Meanwhile, biodiversity is coming under increasing pressure from warmer weather and greater land-use claims from industry, mining and tourism, especially in the Arctic.

The cheapest way for Finland to achieve GHG and biodiversity targets lies in reducing emissions and increasing carbon sinks on agricultural and forestry land. Priority should be on implementing measures to boost forest growth and reduce soil emissions, including through subsidies, mobilising private funding via voluntary carbon markets and regulation.

The climate adaptation policy framework is advanced but adaptation and biodiversity needs have less priority than economic development. Biodiversity objectives should be legislated and more resources devoted to planning in the Arctic to put these objectives on a more joint and level footing with economic growth.

A ready supply of cheap renewable electricity means Finland has more potential than most OECD countries to take advantage of the green industrial transition. The transition is already well underway in Finland and even if only a modest share of its massive potential to generate renewable electricity is built (Figure 3), it would provide the foundation for energy-intensive low emissions production in Finland at a scale that could feed into EU-wide value chains. Ensuring energy security in a system with more volatile renewables will require incentives to invest in more reliable generation and storage systems.

Beyond renewable electricity, there is high uncertainty about which low-emissions technologies will prevail in the long run. This calls for using technologically neutral government support such as R&D credits, which the Finnish government has introduced.

Insufficient policy recognition in Finland and the EU of low-emissions technologies dampens the

incentive to innovate and invest in them. Emissions accounting is often based on basic rules of thumb that fail to reflect actual emissions reductions of new technologies. The benefits of carbon storage in solid form are not yet recognised in the European Union. With its large potential in the green industrial transition, Finland should be in the vanguard and work with its Nordic peers to improve emissions accounting methods so they recognise the emissions reduction benefits over the whole life cycle of new products or processes.

Capital funding is a major constraint to scaling up new low-emissions technologies. The government has an important role to play in crowding in private investment through reducing risk via public-private partnerships and providing seed capital, guarantees or tax incentives. Further improving the capital markets, from private equity to the stock market, and attracting greater EU financial backing would also help.

Workforce strengths in engineering provide a solid foundation for Finland's green transition but green human capital is in short supply. Ensuring the education system generates the necessary specialised skills and firms can attract highly qualified migrants will also be essential to turning green transition potential into reality.

Figure 3. Finland has enormous potential to generate renewable electricity Electricity generation by wind and solar, 2023 or latest

Note: Actual and potential generation are shown for Finland. Only actual generation is shown for other countries and regions to provide a scale benchmark for Finland’s electricity potential. Source: International Energy Agency; and LUT University.

■ MAIN FINDINGS | ● KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

CONSOLIDATING PUBLIC FINANCES

■ Defence, debt service and ageing are putting increasing upward pressure on the fiscal deficit.

● Keep up fiscal consolidation efforts including by increasing public spending efficiency and reducing state-aid to firms that is not productivity enhancing.

■ Wellbeing services counties, which took over social welfare and healthcare services from municipalities in 2023, face financial challenges, despite efforts to reduce staff and raise client fees.

● Strengthen the central government’s financial steering of wellbeing services counties at risk of insolvency including automatically imposing the Ministry of Finance assessment procedure on wellbeing counties exceeding their budget limits.

■ Women are penalised by staying out of work longer to look after young children, reducing their opportunities for pay-enhancing early-career job transitions resulting in one of the largest gender pay gaps in the OECD and reducing labour supply and tax revenue.

● Gradually phase out the home care allowance to encourage higher labour market participation by women with young children while ensuring the availability of quality early childhood education.

RAISING HIGHER EDUCATION ATTAINMENT RATES

■ Around 10% of university places are assigned to students who already have a degree, reducing places for first entrants. Students are incentivised to choose a second bachelor’s degree by zero tuition fees and a lack of alternative courses.

● Impose tuition fees for second and further degrees at the same level.

■ Continuing education and micro-credential courses provide a way to meet changing labour market needs and provide study places to those already with a degree for less time freeing up space for new entrants. However, the offering is restricted, enrolment in short length qualifications is low and micro-credentials are not generally given much recognition by employers.

● Augment the range of zero-tuition-fee post-graduate qualifications and other micro-credentials and increase places available to new entrants to higher education.

ENRICHING HUMAN CAPITAL WITH MORE FOREIGN TALENT

■ High-skilled workers from foreign countries can help address current and future skill shortages.

● Expand the Talent Boost Programme and turn project-based measures with positive results into more stable and permanent allocations with a robust monitoring and evaluation framework.

■ A lack of language proficiency remains a major obstacle to attraction and integration of foreign talent. While English as a working language is prevalent in some sectors like ICT and green industries, there is potential to use it more in companies with employees from mixed backgrounds.

● Encourage firms to adopt flexible language policies in the workplace.

■ Foreign students lack professional networks and internship opportunities during their studies, which hampers their ability to find employment after graduation, contributing to their low retention rates.

● Provide more internship opportunities for foreign students, partnering with companies, educational institutions and municipalities.

■ MAIN FINDINGS | ● KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

ACCELERATING THE TRANSITION TO THE LOW-CARBON ECONOMY

■ With existing policies Finland will not meet its 2035 net zero greenhouse gas emissions target as LULUCF is a net emitter of GHG. Increasing forest growth is a long-run measure to increase LULUCF. Reducing emissions from soil is the fastest and cheapest way to reduce LULUCF emissions.

● To reduce LULUCF emissions, implement the Government’s forest growth package and reduce soil emissions. Prioritise public efforts on reducing GHG emissions from soil through subsidies, mobilising private funding and regulation.

■ Investment in low-emissions electricity, such as wind, solar and nuclear, has increased considerably but scaling it up further faces challenges and remains uncertain.

● Further streamline permitting processes, promote smart grid and energy storage solutions, enhance infrastructure security, and provide seed funds to crowd in private investment.

■ Investments in low-carbon technologies are impeded by inadequate or overly rigid emissions accounting methods, which do not recognise the emissions benefits over the product or process life cycle in carbon capture, methane cracking and rotor sails for shipping.

● While ensuring compliance with EU and international standards, review emissions accounting methods and move away from overly simple and rigid rules of thumb to account for actual emissions reduction over a product’s life cycle.

■ Development of low emissions industries such as the hydrogen industry is being hindered by uncertainty about supplier inputs (renewables electricity) and demand from users (e.g., green steel) which is in turn holding back the use of green hydrogen in decarbonising industries like steel production.

● Support low emissions industrial processes through stronger investment incentives by reducing risk via strategic public-private partnerships and providing seed capital, guarantees or tax incentives and making better use of EU funding, and systematically evaluate these interventions.

■ Land-use changes create pressure on biodiversity. Climate change adds to these pressures and calls for increased adaptation measures.

● Legislate final biodiversity goals laid out in the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and put biodiversity and adaptation including applying climate adapted planning for protecting areas on a more level footing with economic development.

OECD Economic Surveys FINLAND 2025

https://oe.cd/finland

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