HELSINKI, Finland (AFP) — Three prominent Finnish business leaders vowed Tuesday to take a five per cent pay cut to support the new government’s push for across-the-board wage reductions and urged other executives to do the same.

“I myself have decided to donate annually a significant amount of money over the next four years, with a focus on education and research,” the head of the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK), Matti Alahuhta, said in a letter sent to EK’s 16,000 member businesses.

“There is a new approach to governing Finland. We see the means to obtain an (economic) upswing. The entire nation must now adhere to these means with all their heart and energy,” Alahuhta wrote in his letter.

The head of the Federation of Finnish Financial Services, Reijo Karhinen, and the chairman of lift manufacturer Kone, Antti Herlin, told the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat they would do the same.

The paper said the sums would amount to five per cent of the trio’s annual wages.

Alahuhta’s and Karhinen’s salaries have not been disclosed, but Herlin’s salary at Kone in 2014 was 529,400 euros (US$596,650) excluding bonuses.

Alahuhta recalled that Finland’s Prime Minister Juha Sipila has on several occasions urged Finns to make sacrifices in order to get the country’s economy back on track.

Sipila, who heads a newly-elected centre-right government, has pledged to reduce his own pay by five per cent in a bid to convince labour market organisations to participate in what he has termed his “social contract”.

The social contract is aimed at increasing Finland’s competitiveness by lowering the cost of hiring.

Finland’s unemployment rate of 9.6 per cent is at its highest level in 12 years amid a slumping economy.

The country registered a year of stagnation in 2014 after two years of recession, following the decline of its telecom and forestry industries.