The City of Espoo will reduce its workforce by 140 employees over the next three years, with 80 workers facing redundancy and another 60 positions expected to disappear gradually by 2029.
The city confirmed the planned reductions in a press release on Monday, following restructuring negotiations with staff representatives that ended last week without an agreement.
The remaining positions will be phased out over time, partly by leaving vacancies unfilled when employees retire. The city said the total number of redundancies could fall if affected employees can be transferred to other roles within the organisation.
The announcement follows restructuring talks launched in August, when Espoo said it aimed to reduce annual personnel costs by approximately 10 million euros. At that stage, around 300 full-time positions were potentially at risk.
However, the negotiations did not cover all city employees. Approximately 8,000 people working in daycare centres and schools were excluded, leaving around 3,000 employees within the scope of the process.
The planned workforce reductions come as Espoo seeks to address concerns about its financial position. Although critics have pointed to the city’s reported budget surplus, Mayor Kai Mykkänen of the National Coalition Party (NCP) has defended the cuts by citing the growth of municipal debt.
The decision means the final number of job losses could depend partly on whether employees can be reassigned to other positions and how many vacancies the city can eliminate through retirements.
Espoo is not the only municipality in the Helsinki metropolitan area reducing staff. The City of Vantaa announced its own workforce changes last week, with 122 employees facing redundancy and a further 81 being offered new positions within the organisation.
The two announcements highlight the pressure on local authorities to manage staffing costs while making decisions about their finances and public services.
