Municipality Workers Feeling Down in a Welfare State

According to Turun Sanomat Finnish workers, particularly those working in the municipality sector (mainly teachers, health care workers and social workers), are not very fond of their work environment. While about half of the employed labor force feel that their jobs are mentally stressing almost 80% of municipality workers feel that their jobs are both mentally and physically stressing. Workplace bullying is also more common in the municipality sector. Workload is increasing and the pay is hardly moving. At the same time our municipalities need more employees.
I wrote over a year ago about the effectiveness of employment protection in European welfare states and how it affects job security. With these two issues in mind the simple conclusion is that the public sector is, as you should know by now, efficient at destroying welfare.

Sources: Työministeriö, Työolobarometri, Turun Sanomat, YLE

Oh, and Merry Christmas (known as "Joulu" - Yule - in Finland)! Don't forget that Christmas is, or at least it should be, about celebrating the greatest idea of all - Capitalism. Leonard Peikoff on Christmas:

"...the Puritans denounced Santa as the Anti-Christ, because he pushed Jesus to the background. Furthermore, Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give everything to the poor; on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice -- Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones.

All the best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. These customs were greatly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, science, business, worldliness, and egoism, i.e., the pursuit of happiness.

America's tragedy is that its intellectual leaders have typically tried to replace happiness with guilt by insisting that the spiritual meaning of Christmas is religion and self-sacrifice for Tiny Tim or his equivalent. But the spiritual must start with recognizing reality. Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism; that is what Christmas should celebrate -- and really, underneath all the pretense, that is what it does celebrate. It is time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration."