Immigrant Employment – A Rant

Moving to a new country brings about a multitude of issues, often centred on navigating basic everyday life and integrating into a new environment. Off the top of my head – upon moving to Finland – I had to jump new and confusing bureaucratic hurdles; learn a new language (still in progress!); seek to understand Finnish society and social norms; and, to develop social and work-related networks from the ground-up, to name but a few challenges.

From personal experience and through discussions with other international migrants, there is one thing that benefits the above more than anything else – employment. Though it is not a silver bullet, employment contributes significantly to addressing issues concerning integration. Since swapping my remote working role for regular employment at a Finnish organisation, I have felt more integrated and independent in Finland than ever before.
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We immigrants want to work. The Finnish government wants us to work. Yet over 25 % of immigrants in Finland are unemployed. Meanwhile, of those that are employed, many are in roles that are not in line with their qualifications or experience. There appears to be a fundamental belief that immigrants are unskilled or that their qualifications or experiences do not translate, or worse, are simply not accepted in the Finnish market.

A particular issue that rankles the international applicant is the job advert written in English, only to contain the words “Fluent Finnish required”. Moreover, in some (illegal) cases, it reads as “Native Finnish required” – as if fluency alone was not enough. It leads one to question the necessity of Finnish in the workplace if the job advert itself is written in English. Could the applicant, for example, speak some Finnish or even none at all but learn alongside the role?
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Ultimately, it has constantly been demonstrated that a diverse workforce is an asset. Whether a Finnish company wants to become or remain a dominant force in the national market or to expand abroad, they would benefit immensely from utilising the existing international talent held within Finland. International migrants can offer unique perspectives, drive innovation, and even open doors to new markets – both domestic and international.

Success stories of international employees can be found aplenty in the world of start-ups, research and hospitality, amongst other sectors. However, there remains companies and organisations cut-off from this development, often considered for whatever reason to be “too Finnish” to hire immigrants. This line of thinking does a disservice to both the company and to the Finnish economy by neglecting an exciting, talented, and innovative international community already within Finland.
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I, and indeed many other immigrants, are honoured to live in Finland. We are proud to call this place our home regardless of whether we moved for work, for love, for protection or for any other myriad of possible reasons. All we ask for is the opportunity to use our knowledge, skills and experience to contribute.

Alec Thurnham
Familia’s board member

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interested in the topic? join us in suomiareena!

You can follow the discussion on the topic of building a multicultural workplace and immigrants entering the Finnish working life next week at the SuomiAreena festival. Familia’s executive director Elina Helmanen will be joining a diverse group of professionals to discuss these themes and more on the 14th of July from 14.00 to 14.45. You can follow the discussion live from Pori BEPOP stage or watch the stream on MTV’s website. The streaming link will be shared in our channels one day before the discussion. The discussion will be in Finnish and English.

On this website you can find all the discussions happening at the biggest societal festival of Finland, SuomiAreena.