Finland is bidding immigrants a warm welcome. The attractions of working in Finland include good working conditions and high employment security. Even the intriguing Finnish language poses no barrier to newcomers willing to make an effort. Last year some 22,500 people migrated to Finland.
Photos: Anna Dammert, except inner photo right: Tekes/Matias Uusikylä
Finland has woken up to the fact that when the post-war baby-boom age groups retire, it will face a labour shortage that its own younger generation will be unable to fill. For example, if all the jobs that will be vacated in nursing over the next few decades had to be filled with Finns only, then one in four of Finland’s young people would have to train to be nurses. Since that situation is obviously a non-starter, there is a clear and present need to recruit people from abroad. Other sectors too, such as construction, are facing a labour shortage.
The idea of taking either a short-term or a permanent job in Finland, or actually settling here, is not as extraordinary as it was a mere ten or twenty years ago. The attractions of working in Finland include good working conditions and high employment security. Even the intriguing Finnish language poses no barrier to newcomers willing to make an effort, although admittedly it may slow them down a bit.
Labour mobility has in fact speeded up considerably with enlargement of the European Union. In 2006, some 22,500 people migrated to Finland, over a thousand more than in the previous year and a good 10,000 more than the number of people who emigrated. Finland has been, and still is to some extent, a culturally, ethnically and linguistically homogeneous country; the attitude towards newcomers has been largely one of caution among both officials and the population in general. Now, however, Finland has decided to bid immigrants a warm welcome. The political programme of the second government of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, which took office in spring 2007, makes a clear transition from a policy on aliens to a policy on immigrants.
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