OREANDA-NEWS On Tuesday 22 November 2016, Finland submitted an application for support from the European Globalisation Fund for redundant Nokia workers. The funding is meant to support nearly a thousand people laid off from Nokia. The support applied from the European Commission amounts to EUR 4.4 million.

In the coming months, Finland will also be submitting an application to the European Globalisation Fund (EGF) to support the people who were laid off from Microsoft during this year.

“Both the Nokia and the Microsoft redundancies are a part of a larger structural change in the ICT sector. The demands on people working in this sector are changing at a fast pace. With the help of the EGF support, it will be possible to update the competence of current top professionals to meet future requirements, too”, states Minister of Justice and Employment Jari Lindstr?m.

Support measures will be started soon after delivering the notice of termination, even though preparing and processing the EGF application will take time.

There are currently many other projects in Finland also operating on EGF support. In October 2016, Finland received a funding decision from the EU for supporting the people laid off from Microsoft in 2015.

The funding decision on the project concerning the laid off University of Helsinki and Aalto University employees is expected to arrive in early 2017. Finland submitted the application to the European Commission in July 2016.