Made redundant in Finland? Your employer already owes you training
If you are dismissed on production or economic grounds by an employer with 30 or more staff, after five years of service, Finnish law obliges that employer to fund employment-promoting training worth at least one month's salary. This is not a grant you apply for. It is an entitlement most people never ask about, and it can be spent on a Code Labs Academy bootcamp.
An obligation your employer already has, not an application you file
Every other page in this section is about persuading somebody to give you money. This one is different. Under chapter 7, section 13 of the Finnish Employment Contracts Act (työsopimuslaki 7:13), an employer that regularly employs at least 30 people and dismisses you on production or economic grounds after five or more years of continuous service must offer you employment-promoting coaching or training, työllistymistä edistävä valmennus tai koulutus. The law also sets the value: at least your own calculated monthly salary, or the average monthly earnings of the employer's staff in your role, whichever of the two is higher. Most people made redundant in Finland never hear this said out loud. They accept whatever outplacement package HR puts in front of them, use two of the six CV workshops, and never discover that the content of the training is something they are entitled to negotiate. Here is the part that matters most for anyone who already knows what they want to learn. Työmarkkinatori's own guidance for employers sets out more than one way to discharge the duty: the employer can buy the training, it can hand over a training voucher, or it can agree with the employee to reimburse the cost of training the employee arranges themselves (työnantaja voi sopia työntekijän kanssa itse hankkiman koulutuksen kustannusten korvaamisesta). Those last two routes are the reason this page exists, because both of them let you point the budget at a provider you chose rather than the one already on HR's supplier list. And if your employer simply does not provide the training at all, it owes you the equivalent sum in money. There is one deadline that quietly kills this entitlement, so it belongs at the top rather than in the small print: the training should normally be carried out within two months of your employment ending. In practice that means the conversation belongs in the change negotiations (muutosneuvottelut, still widely called yhteistoimintaneuvottelut) or in the first days after you receive notice, not once you have handed back your laptop. Two honest notes before you read on. The content still has to be agreed with your employer, and the employer has a say in what counts as employment-promoting, so treat your choice of course as a well-argued proposal rather than an instruction. And one month's salary is a genuine contribution rather than a full scholarship: against a fee of EUR 5,000 to EUR 17,000 it will often cover a substantial share and sometimes all of a shorter programme, while an employer that wants to may fund more than the statutory minimum. For anything left over we offer interest-free monthly instalments, up to 60 payments made directly to Code Labs Academy, plus a discount if you pay the fee upfront.
Your employer must regularly employ at least 30 people. The threshold is counted at the level of the employer, not your own team or site, so a small office inside a large Finnish company is normally still covered. Below 30 employees the statutory duty does not arise, although nothing stops a smaller employer from funding training voluntarily.
You need at least five years of continuous service with that same employer. This is the condition people most often assume they fail and then turn out to meet, because the count runs across role changes and internal transfers within the same employment relationship. Check your actual start date on your employment certificate before you decide you do not qualify.
The dismissal has to be on production or economic grounds (irtisanominen tuotannollisista ja taloudellisista syistä): redundancy, restructuring, the role disappearing. Dismissal for reasons connected to you personally does not trigger the duty, and neither does resigning of your own accord, however strongly you were encouraged to.
Timing is effectively a fourth condition, and it is the one that catches people. The training should normally be carried out within two months of your employment ending. Raise it during the change negotiations or in the same week your notice arrives. Once the notice period is over and nothing has been agreed, you are arguing about a right you have let go cold.
The content is agreed between you and your employer. The duty is to fund training that promotes your re-employment, and your employer has a say in whether a given course qualifies. That is a real constraint, not a formality, so bring an argument rather than a link. The one that works: a bootcamp in a field with open Finnish vacancies is employment-promoting almost by definition, which is exactly the test the statute sets.
Nationality, residence permit and working language make no difference. This is an obligation attached to your employment relationship in Finland, so it applies to an international employee in Helsinki on exactly the same terms as to a Finnish colleague, and it can be discussed and agreed in English.
Frequently asked questions
HR offered me an outplacement package. Can I ask for a bootcamp instead?
You can ask, and asking is the whole point of this page. The statute obliges your employer to fund employment-promoting coaching or training, and the content is agreed between employer and employee rather than dictated by HR's existing supplier. Työmarkkinatori's guidance for employers is explicit that the duty can also be discharged with a training voucher, or by agreeing to reimburse the cost of training the employee arranges themselves. So the right question is not whether you are allowed to propose something else, it is which of those routes your employer wants to use. Be ready for a genuine negotiation: your employer does get a say in whether a given course promotes your employment, and it may prefer its framework supplier for administrative reasons. Bring the argument that answers the statutory test directly, which is open Finnish vacancies in the field you are training for, and put it in writing.
What if my employer refuses, or just ignores it?
Then the entitlement converts into money: an employer that does not provide the training owes you the equivalent sum as compensation. Start by making the request in writing so there is a record of what you asked and when, and keep whatever answer you get. Speak to your shop steward or your trade union next, because in Finland this is exactly the kind of thing they handle routinely and a union letter often resolves it without any further escalation. Compliance with the Employment Contracts Act is supervised by the occupational safety and health authorities, and a disputed claim is ultimately a matter for the courts. Do not let this drift, though. The training is meant to be carried out within roughly two months of your employment ending, and the further past that date you get, the more the discussion turns into a compensation claim rather than a course you actually attend.
Does a foreign, online provider count? Code Labs Academy is a German company.
Yes. Chapter 7 section 13 sets no provider requirement at all: no approved list, no Finnish registration, no accreditation gate, and no rule about whether teaching happens in a classroom or live online. Your employer simply buys a service from a supplier and pays the invoice, and we bill the company directly in its own name. This is genuinely different from Finland's public funding channels, where the provider rules are strict and closed to us: studying on unemployment benefit (omaehtoinen opiskelu työttömyysetuudella) is limited by the national guideline to education providers subject to Finnish legislation, and Kela study aid does not cover non-degree courses. We hold German AZAV certification, which carries no legal weight in Finland whatsoever, so use it as a quality signal in your proposal and never as an eligibility argument. The eligibility here comes from your employment relationship, not from us.
One month's salary does not cover the whole course fee. What happens to the rest?
That is the normal situation and it is worth planning for rather than being surprised by. The statutory value is a floor, so the first thing to try is simply asking the employer to fund the full programme: many do, especially when a redundancy is being handled decently and the difference is a few thousand euros against the goodwill of a departing colleague with five or more years of service. If the answer is the statutory minimum and no more, the gap is covered the ordinary way. We offer interest-free monthly instalments, up to 60 payments made directly to Code Labs Academy, and a discount if you pay the fee upfront, plus the other discounts listed on this site. Some people also use part of their redundancy package for the difference. What we would not do is let you sign up for a fee you cannot service while you are between jobs, which is precisely what the free funding call is for.
My notice period is already over. Is it too late?
Not necessarily, but move this week. The rule is that the training should normally be carried out within two months of the employment ending, and a later date can be agreed between you and your employer. So if you are inside that window, propose a start date now and get it agreed in writing. If you are past it and nothing was ever offered to you, the entitlement has not simply vanished: an employer that failed to provide the training owes the equivalent sum in compensation, and that is a claim to raise with your former employer in writing, with your trade union involved. Either way, the practical advice is the same. Anything you can get agreed on paper while your employer's HR team is still handling the redundancy will go through far more easily than the same request six months later.
Will I be taxed on the training, and does taking it affect my unemployment benefit?
The training itself is tax-free income for you. It is a cost your employer carries under a statutory obligation, so it does not appear on your payslip as a benefit in kind. If you end up receiving money instead of training because the employer did not provide it, that is a different payment and you should ask payroll or the tax authority how it will be handled before you budget the net amount. On unemployment benefit we would rather point you at the right desk than guess, because the rules on studying while claiming were amended during 2026 and they turn on the study load and duration rather than on who pays the fee. Ask your own municipal employment area about your specific course before it starts, and ask your unemployment fund about the benefit, since the two decisions are made in different places.
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