Finns are spending less and less on alcohol and more and more on services in Estonia.
The share of visitors who brought alcoholic beverages to Finland decreased from 81 per cent in 2014 to 69 per cent in 2017 and has continued to fall in 2018, according to interviews conducted at the border this year on commission from the Finnish Commerce Federation.
The government rejected a request from Kela, the country’s social security agency, for additional funding to expand the innovative two-year pilot program, meaning it will come to an end in January 2019, the Guardian reports.
The program, which Finland inaugurated in January 2017, saw 2,000 jobless people receive €560 ($685) per month without requiring them to work or seek employment. Recipients who found a job continued to receive the payments. In 2015, Finland’s unemployment rate had hit a 17-year high of 10%, prompting calls for welfare reform.
Across the country, 2,000 unemployed people between the ages of 25 and 58 were randomly selected for the experiment, which received international recognition for its potential impact on social security and was a European first.
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