UPM Kymmene announced it was cutting 2,500 jobs last spring. The mill town of Kuusankoski was hardest hit with around 1,000 redundancies.
Some 400 employees are retiring. Some 200 more have found re-employment. However, many will have to give up their homes and seek work elsewhere. Shipbuilder Aker and other businesses in the Turku area have offered jobs to around twenty welders.
Paper making started in Voikkaa in 1897 and the mill soon gained a reputation as a reliable producer of newsprint. Many international dailies were printed on paper manufactured by the mill. Now the machines will be dismantled and used as spare parts for other mills.
For the community in Kuusankoski, the mill closure marks the end of an era when the energy of the Kymi River was tapped to produce pulp and paper during Finland's first industrial revolution. Despite the closure of the Voikkaa Mill, paper production continues just down stream at UPM's Kymi Paper Mill. However, Voikkaa becomes a ghost town.
