HELSINKI: Natural Resources Center (Luke) will start co-determination negotiations, which aim at cost savings of EUR 11 million. The negotiations may lead to a maximum of 210 person-years reduction. The Resources Centre is headquartered in Viikki, Helsinki on Tuesday, 21 April 2015. Photo – Lehtikuva.
The Resources Center (Luke) is terminating 146 employees as codetermination negotiations end. Eliminating pensioners and part-time staff will reduce the number of redundancies among the employees. In addition to eliminating redundancies, savings are expected from reducing services and travel expenses, as well as rearranging their workspace. Luke is also planning to lay off their entire staff next autumn for a maximum of two weeks.
Luke expects to save approximately 11 million euros, which were the purpose of the codetermination negotiations. The main reasons for the cuts are the government reforms in research institutes and funding, which cut Luke’s core funding nearly 15 million euros from 2014 to 2016. According to Luke’s press release, increasing external funding will only replace a part of the core funding.
Luke started their operations at the beginning of this year. Luke was formed by combining Agrifood Research Finland, the Forest Research Institute, the Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, and Tike statistics.
