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Great, Finland made it to the international news: we now have the highest unemployment rate in all of Europe – 10.6% as measured in November 2025.

Honestly, I would not be surprised if Finland hits an 11% unemployment rate by end of January. I feel like there is no week passing when I don't open LinkedIn and read that another person from my network got laid off.

And some of them are senior experts in their fields, had a status in their companies that nobody thought this would ever happen to!

How are you affected by the high unemployment numbers?

And while everyone is sharing the numbers and bad news, how does that affect you personally?

Are you either:

- Not happy in your job and actually wanting to change, but seeing the unemployment rate in Finland sky-rocketing makes you doubt that this is even possible!?

- Having a friend who just got laid off – and while you are still employed, you are highly worried that this will happen to you as well?

- Just facing a lay-off yourself and wondering how the hell you should find a new job in this market?

- Or unemployed for quite a while already – and with this news definitely losing hope?

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We are in downfall.

The situation right now is a downward spiral for many.

You are already afraid about your own situation.
Then you open the news or social media and read more and more about how it affects others.
That feeds right back into your anxiety.
You question more and more what you could do at work to avoid your position being terminated, too. You spend hours polishing your CV, hoping that it will help.

And even though I founded my own company after my lay-off last summer, I would be lying if I said there was never anxiety involved.
Anxiety about failing. About losing everything. And it still is. Almost every day.

And I am also asking myself:
How the hell can a country put its own people that much into mental struggles? This has NOTHING to do with leadership!

When I got fired, I complained a lot in the past about bad bosses and supervisors I had in my previous employments. But hey, the Finnish government is crowning that.

While in companies managers still get educated in leadership trainings about “psychological safety” and other fancy buzzwords, the authorities of this country are setting an example of how NOT TO DO it.

They are:

- Enabling companies to lay off people even faster is NO mental safety for people.
- Increasing uncertainties about whether you will still have your job next month (or even next week) is NO mental safety for people.
- Announcing the tightening of residence rules and unemployment benefits is NO mental safety for people.
- Paired with blurry statements like, “We cannot continue like this...”

Yes, but how DO we continue?

What I expect from real leadership would be clear actions that fit the needs of people (instead of going against them!) and demonstrate a willingness to increase economic and financial safety.

From my own – yes, admittedly limited – leadership experience, at least I have learned: As a leader, you are nothing without your people.

And people who feel safe and appreciated will work hard – even to sort out the mess together with you.
But if you take safety away, you just paralyze them.

The question is (or what I asked myself yesterday): What can you do about this?

Well, I noticed that talking helps.
Encouragement helps.
That there is someone who sees you.
Who lifts up your mood.
Maybe you leave a conversation with a new idea, a glimmer of hope, on how to find another opportunity.

These times are challenging us mentally.
There is no stability and security on the outside.
You have to keep that up for yourself so you don’t go crazy.
To keep going.
To not drown in a downward spiral of bad news, rejections, financial struggles, and anxiety.

What prevents me from going crazy is that I have learned how to handle the anxiety. How to keep going, although it’s challenging. How to keep creating opportunities to succeed – and yes, they came.

As a career coach, I don’t believe in “CV clinics” or purely rational job-seeking advice during these challenging times. It feels wrong to try to teach people how to improve their CV and job applications when there are fewer and fewer jobs in this country.

But I want people to have a strategy for how to make sure they keep going every single day.

This is what you will hear in my upcoming FREE webinar on Wednesday, 28th January at 18:00. Register now.

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