Ulstein is situated in Southern Sunnmøre. Originally, it was a fishing-community, but today the area has a strong concentration of businesses associated with the maritime industry, fisheries and the offshore oil industry.
– But oil is like fish; demand and prices fluctuate, and the late 1990s were rather difficult, explains Svein Rødset.
– So, if we were going to continue to live in the area, we had to do something, he continues. What did we do? We looked to the future. We already had Norway's largest cluster of specialized yards. We decide to take chances, during this bleak period, to build very high-tech ships, using our own money. It worked, the ships sold. Unemployment has also been decreasing and the order reserves are as high as ever, he says, also admitting that recent oil-price rises in the wake of the latest Iraqi-war, have helped to raise demand for top-of the range ships and equipment.
In terms of employment opportu-nities, all insular areas seem more vulnerable to external change than less isolated areas. Living in the later, one can, by private or public transport, reach extended labour markets. To survive, the insular community has to be flexible and we have to believe in our own potentials. Indeed, as Svein Rødset notes: – I doubt we would have managed such a turn-around without this attitude, as well as the profound trust we have in each other, accumulated since we were traditional fishermen, constantly dependent upon each other to survive.
Nothing from Copenhagen
For Ulstein, the external forces influencing employment primarily relate to the fierce international competition in the maritime industries. For Gotland and Bornholm in particular, the closing down of army camps has also had a similar effect, with almost 1 000 jobs being lost in each community. The steady decline of the fishing industry in the Baltic Sea, and the transfer of the food industry to low-wage countries have also had a significant impact on the two island communities.
On Gotland, the Swedish author-ities have initiated the transfer of several state jobs to compensate for the loss of the military opportunities. Both the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) are among those participating.
In Denmark, similar initiatives have not been undertaken in respect of Bornholm. – The government in Copenhagen does not care; we might as well be on the moon, as the local saying goes. It is however expected that unemployment on Bornholm will fall, due in the main to the combination of fewer births and to the fact that the ranks of the unemployed are bolstered by many people already close to retirement age.
Sailors live abroad
Åland's economy is dominated by shipping, which accounts for just over one third of the value added and 20 percent of total employment. Due to the large share of employment in this sector, a particular feature of Åland's labour market is the rather significant difference between the figures for employed persons living in Åland (13 107 in 2003) and those employed in Åland's labour market (15 069 in 2003). In other words, a large number of those working within the shipping sector do not live in the archipelago.
Åland's shipping sector is divided into three sub-sectors: Ferries to and from Stockholm, Helsinki, and Tallinn, international oil tankers, and specialized carriers for shipping paper in bulk. Tourism to the islands themselves counts for less than 10 percent of Åland's 'value added'.
The sale of so-called tax-free goods is very important to the ferry-traffic. Any changes in the rules that regulate this, particularly at the EU level, could thus significantly impact Åland's employment situation. In other countries, the importation of low-cost sailors has been used as a solution to similar problems.
Lacks 100 IT-staff
After the maritime industries sector, the general services sector provides the island-community with most employment. In fact, during the summer of 2006, key Åland IT-companies will be trying to hire no less than one hundred new staff.
– We do not know if we will manage this, but it is very good that all the IT-companies as well as the local authorities are cooperating rather than competing in achieving this goal, states Lasse Karlsson, director of the Åland Labour Market & Student Services Agency.
Eyjafjör∂ur is the only area to experience employment growth in the primary sector, particularly within the fisheries sector. This growth has also attracted foreign workers. Approximately sixty Poles are now engaged in the fishing industry. In the future, further employment opportunities will be available when the new aluminium plant opens in Husavik. Kainuu goes sports. In the Kainuu region, innovation is targeted through the four expertise centres, Seniorpolis, Snowpolis, Virtuosi, and Measurepolis. The latter being a cluster of measurement technology enterprises forming an expertise centre in cooperation with several higher education institutions, research centres, and companies.
Snowpolis is particularly exciting in many ways. Their vision is no less than to provide the best sports and leisure facilities in the Nordic countries. To do this they promote exercise and sports on a large scale from all-year skiing (snow-tunnel) to golf and tennis. Their main markets outside Finland are Central Europe, Northern America, and Japan.
In only a few years, 50 new jobs have been provided, a figure it is officially hoped will be multiplied no less than six times before 2008.