How to attract and hold on to educated foreigners
What should we do to get highly educated international talent to Finland - and keep it here?
”People come here for work, study and family reasons. And often, when someone gets a workplace here, they bring their family with them,” says Ville Pitkänen, Doctor of Social Science and Research Manager at E2 Research, to simplify the reasons for highly educated people to come to Finland.
In the International Talent Finland research project, E2 asked a large number of educated immigrants what attracts them to stay in Finland and why they are considering leaving.
”A good standard of living, proximity to nature and work-life balance were among the top positives. Many people feel that the work-life balance is better achieved here than in many other countries,” says Pitkänen.
”Public safety, democracy and human rights are also important attractions, especially for immigrants from countries where they may not be implemented. So their country of origin also affects what they value here.
Swedish people may not consider Finnish democracy to be special, but for people from the Middle East it is an attraction. For some, being close to nature may mean sitting in a nearby park, and for others, being in the wilderness.”
”For those with families, it is important that the Finnish society is child-friendly. Municipal kindergartens, the freedom and safety of basic education and the fact that children can walk to school by themselves are also major attractions for families to stay in the country,” says Pitkänen.
”In another survey we made, people with foreign backgrounds who do physical work highlighted the really low hierarchies in Finnish working life and the resulting uncomplicatedness. At lunchtime, you eat at the same table and the cleaner is also treated as a person. This probably also applies to the workplaces of the highly educated.”
Returning ex-pats are on almost the same line
Finnish-born returnees master the language, but still face the same difficulties as immigrants with foreign background.
”The main problem here is that we don’t value the skills acquired on the international labour market. If you have been abroad long enough, your skills or networks will not be appreciated. The recruiter ends up hiring someone whose CV shows the familiar Finnish career paths.
Finnish employers also do not seem to note even the prestigious foreign degrees.”
”You may have graduated from one of Europe’s top universities, which would guarantee a good workplace in France, for example. In Finland, however, it is not recognised,” Pitkänen says.
”You enter the Finnish labour market with confidence and you are not even invited to an interview. But when they get their career started, people are usually doing fine.
On the other hand, Finland offers the same attractiveness factors for returnees as for those with foreign backgrounds. The returnees are also very aware of them.”
”The return is often considered in the pivotal stages of life: when the children are born or starting kindergarten. Even when the children are going to study, the Finnish education system attracts them,” Pitkänen describes.
”The returnees usually have relatives and friends from their youth here and a social network. One stage in life when people consider returning is when their parents start to need help. Their professional ambition is already fulfilled and the last moments to be present in their parents’ everyday lives are at hand.
Foreign Finns and returnees have varying knowledge of Finnish society, but they still know in advance what kind of country they are coming to and generally know the language.”
”A problem may arise with a spouse who doesn’t know Finnish and is disappointed after coming here to find a job. The fear of the spouse becoming unemployed may also prevent families from moving to Finland.”
Pitkänen is interested to see whether the development of remote working solutions is lowering the threshold in Finland. However, this would require easing of various administrative practices.
”From a tax and business perspective, we have all sorts of challenges to hire a permanent resident in another country. The systems will probably develop in this respect as remote working becomes more common,” Pitkänen says.
”This will make it easier for Finns to work for Finnish companies from abroad. At the same time, recruitment of experts from abroad will become simpler so that they do not necessarily have to move to Finland. This is already common in small businesses.”
Working in the third native language?
For highly educated foreigners, the language barrier is definitely the most important barrier to staying in Finland, and it is inevitably linked to the difficulty of finding work and friends, and the lack of networks.
”We have a lot of foreigners who are happy and doing well. They have an English-speaking workplace and have no difficulties working here only in English. Their social life is also handled in English, which all Finnish friends speak well,” Pitkänen says.
”But there are also those who haven’t found a job where they could work without Finnish skills. And then it’s hard to find friends. And when there are no friends, there are no networks that could help with their job search, even just by suggesting that somewhere was vacant.
Most of the highly educated people who come here speak English well and are hired by large technology or software companies that have always worked internally in English.”
”It’s easy for an immigrant to fall into such a multinational working community. But if you don’t apply for jobs in industries where English is the norm, things immediately become more challenging,” Pitkänen says.
”In working life, we should accept broken Finnish and offer paths where people can get a workplace with some basic language skills, which are then strengthened alongside work and by studying.”
Almost 40% of those who took part in the survey had experienced discrimination in working life, but Pitkänen reminds us that different surveys give different answers to the same question.
”However, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) has carried out studies in which the recruiter has been given the same CV under different names, and a foreign-based name has not been selected for an interview as often as a Finnish name. University students do not experience Finnish everyday racism in the same way, as they live in an internationally assembled and oriented group.”
Things could be better
So, what should be done to get and keep highly educated foreigners in Finland?
”The government has done a great deal to get this right. In fact, we have a surprisingly good and comprehensive set of services for immigrants and businesses. However, it has issues: it is fragmented and people don’t find the services,” says Pitkänen.
”Services could also be developed more consistently and long-term. We have a lot of pilot projects with fixed-term financing. Typically, a project lasts for a year, after which it is stated that it was really successful and will be discontinued. And even if such a project will continue with some funding, people do not find it.”
Although many everyday administrative matters are much simpler in Finland than in the reference countries, issuing residence permits is still a very bureaucratic process.
”Even though we’ve always tried to make things easier, there’s still a lot to do. I think that immigration bureaucracy is very defensive to those who come from outside the EU,” Pitkänen says.
”Higher education institutions could, for their part, be more honest about the fact that Finnish skills are required in Finland to access the labour market. And perhaps we could also think about how language teaching could be integrated with other studies.
In the workplaces, we could try to get rid of the black and white idea that the working community is either entirely English-speaking or that employees have to be able to speak perfect Finnish.”
”Training paths should be developed to enable language learning alongside work. And consider workplace practices accordingly in multinational and multicultural working communities. Large cities have plenty of services for their employees from abroad, but companies could also do something about it,” says Pitkänen.
”There is a lot of talk in Finland about labour shortages and lack of talent. And then there is no willingness to hire talent from abroad. I think it would be smarter to hire foreigners than to say that we no longer have employees and close the business.
Facts
The large-scale research project “International Talent Finland” conducted by E2 Research between 2021 and 2023 examined the phenomena and attitudes related to the settling and employment of highly educated mobile labour.
In addition to the survey material, the researchers used information gathered in interviews and workshops. A total of 2,500 foreign Finns, returnees, foreigners living in Finland and working or applying for work here, as well as foreigners who have moved to Finland on behalf of a partner and are pursuing a higher education degree in Finland, answered the surveys.
The project was funded by a prestigious consortium involving the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland, Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Finland, Business Finland, Confederation of Finnish Industries, Keva, employer and trade unions and major cities. They also participated in the project’s follow-up team.