Image: Petteri Paalasmaa / AOP

The government's controversial competitiveness pact has failed to inspire widespread confidence among business leaders, a new poll claims.

The hard-fought deal, which was a centrepiece of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä's plan to get the economy growing again, saw unions agree to cuts to pay and benefits in return for the government withholding 1.5 billion euros’ worth of austerity measures.

However a survey of finance directors, carried out by the consultancy Rainmaker, has found that the majority believe the hard-fought deal will have only a modest effect on the competitiveness of their own business. Eight out of ten of the 60 respondents said they expected the effect to be small or insignificant.

A further 57 percent said they rated the government’s drawing up of the competitiveness deal as either “bad” or “very bad”.

However, 63 percent of the finance directors questioned said they expect their firms' turnover to grow in the next six months. One-third said they expect their companies to be making staff reductions.

60 Finnish finance directors from large and medium companies took part in the survey, which was carried out in May this year.