Move to Finland may entail career risks

Immigrants with inadequate Finnish or Swedish skills may struggle to find employment that matches their professional qualifications in Finland.

A total of 37,862 foreigners were registered as unemployed job-seekers in Finland in June, representing a nearly two-fold increase from the corresponding period in 2009, show statistics released by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy. Meanwhile, unemployment among the native population has only increased by roughly 30 per cent.

The steep increase in the unemployment of immigrants is partly attributable to notable growth in the availability of foreign workforce since the early 2000s.

Estonian Doris Sarapuu is looking for a job after working one year at a cafe in Tampere. She holds a master's degree in technology.

 Experts, however, also estimate that the language requirements set by employers are often needlessly rigorous. “Immigrants have a long road ahead of them to find employment in their field of study in Finland. You generally need to have solid language skills to find employment in Finland,” acknowledges Kristina Stenman, the head of immigration affairs at the Ministry of Employment and the Economy.

Employers may expect applicants to be proficient in Finnish although it may not be necessary for the daily tasks.

The issue has also been recognised by the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK). “We've sometimes had to point out that you don't need to have such high language requirements when recruiting. You could broaden your recruitment options quite a lot,” says Mikko Räsänen, an expert in immigration policy at EK.

The Employment and Economic Development Offices have currently listed roughly 400 English-language job vacancy notifications on their website. Many of the employers, however, require that the applicants are proficient in Finnish.

Learning the language can take several years as it is one of the most difficult languages in the world.

A number of employers have turned to foreign applicants only as a last resort, after recognising the shortage of qualified native-born applicants. The employers may have previously lacked the willingness or resources to organise employee orientation training for foreign language-speakers.

“You can think about to what extent your employees must be able to understand workplace safety instructions in Finnish. This is of course a necessity in dealing with toxins, for example. But you can think about translating the instructions or to what extent you could use pictorial instructions,” reminds Barbara Bergbom, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.

Large employers, such as the City of Helsinki and Helsinki Region Transport, have organised orientation and language training specifically for their foreign employees. Small and medium enterprises, in contrast, may not have the resources to do so.

These enterprises are expected to create new jobs.

The threshold for hiring an employee of immigrant background can be high especially at workplaces where the work community has come accustomed to using Finnish as the working language. “The language skills of your people may be at a level that makes it impossible to communicate in any other language than Finnish,” points out Juha Pesola, a sales manager at VMP.

The threshold, he adds, is not as high if a company decides to hire more than one foreign employee at once. “The threshold applies more to individual professionals,” he says.