(Bloomberg) --
A global economic slowdown that’s likely to worsen as the U.S.-China trade war intensifies, will send ripple effects to the Finnish economy, threatening the government’s job creation goals, according to Prime Minister Antti Rinne.
Rinne’s government, which took its oath of office in June, wants to raise the employment rate to 75% of the workforce by 2023, from its current level of 72.6% in order to offset the mounting costs of health care and pensions as its population ages.
“We’ll need to work hard to boost the employment rate,” Rinne told reporters on Wednesday in Helsinki without outlining specific measures. “If we cannot raise the rate to 80% over the coming decades, we risk running out of money” to fund social spending.
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