Two Finnish forest companies - UPM Kymmene and Stora Enso - announced today the closure of several factories and units in Finland and Germany, cutting some 2000 jobs. The decision especially hurt eastern and northern Finland where jobs are scarce and people generally and quite understandably unwilling to move to the bigger cities in the coastal areas, not to speak of the effort to retrain themselves. The government has already announced that the affected regions will be helped, also financially.

I have earlier blogged about the coming refocusing and downsizing of the forest industry both in Finland and globally. The closures nevertheless came as a bit of a surprise. Russia’s decision to raise the roundwood duties seem to be the finishing touch for the drastic measures the companies now took. Hopefully the industry manages to reinvent itself and finds new sustainable products.