Finnish Working Life Barometers are annual surveys investigating employee opinions on changes in working life in Finland. The survey series was launched in 1992 and is conducted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. Many questions and themes have remained the same over the years. Main themes include employment, economy, staff numbers, autonomy, organisation and flexibility of work, and psychosocial work environment. Data are collected in connection with the Labour Force Surveys of Statistics Finland.
The annual survey studied employee opinion on the quality of working life in Finland. Main themes were psychosocial working environment, job characteristics, pay systems, satisfaction with the job, employment security, training and development, capacity to work, and bullying and discrimination at work. The year 2004 survey contained more questions than previously on workplace characteristics, pay systems, willingness to give up work, bullying and violence.
First, the respondents were asked how many years they had worked for the employer they were working for at the time, type of contract, number of persons at the workplace, what kind of changes there had been in staff numbers, working hours and contracts over the past 12 months, and whether people had been transferred to other units. Further questions covered team work, and whether there had been conflicts at the workplace, between what groups and whether the conflicts had decreased or increased over the past 12 months. Incidents of bullying and violence were charted.
Next set of questions covered autonomy and influence at work, overtime and its compensation, and membership in a trade union or professional association. Changes over the past year in workload, physical or mental stress, in access to training, support from supervisors etc were charted as well as pay systems and satisfaction with the workplace. One topic pertained to whether the respondents had presented any ideas to improve working conditions, products, services or working methods at the workplace and whether there had been other development initiatives. Other questions covered workplace characteristics and the respondents' participation in job-related training and development. The respondents were asked how likely it was that they would be dismissed or laid off, or their tasks or working hours would be changed over the next year.
Opinions were charted on employment situation in Finland and what kind of changes were happening in working life in, for instance, relating to management style, possibility to influence decisions, the financial situation of their organisation. A number of questions investigated how the employees' capacity to work and occupational health and safety had been taken into account at the workplace, the respondents' sickness absences, illnesses, and estimate of own mental and physical capacity to work. The respondents were asked whether they would be willing to give up work. Discrimination at work based on ethnic group, age, gender or contract type was explored.
Background variables included the respondent's gender, age, type of municipality, major region (NUTS2), region (NUTS3), occupational group, status in employment, industry of employment, employer type, economic activity, weekly working hours, additional jobs, industry of additional job, and basic and vocational education. Most background variables were obtained from the Labour Force Survey 2004 telephone interviews.
Simple random sample from the population register. For its Labour Force Survey 2004, Statistics Finland drew a random sample of people aged between 15 - 74 and living in Finland. From the Labour Force Survey sample, Finnish-speaking employees aged 18 - 64 who had responded being employed for at least 10 hours a week were selected for the Working Life Barometer.