International members’ employment survey results

In October 2024 Loimu carried out it’s first ever employment and salary survey in English. Previously the employment and salary surveys had only been distributed in Finnish to our members. But with our growing international member base, we wanted to get some more detailed data on their spesific situations in the job market.

We received almost 200 answers and the response rate was an impressive 40%. Over a quarter of the respondents have a Finnish citizenship and over half have a permanent resident permit or they are citizens from other EU countries. Most of the respondents have a well-established situation at the labour market, with over 25% reporting 11–20 years of employment after graduating and 25% reporting 5–10 years of employment after graduating.

The distribution of respondents at the labour market corresponds well with the distribution of Loimu members at the labour market; 43% of respondents work at the private sector. Almost half of the respondents have a permanent employment contract and only 8% are unemployed. Even though most of our respondents have a pretty good labour market situation, over half responded that they have either suspected or been told upfront that their Finnish language skills have prevented them from being employed.

The mean salary (4,298€) for all respondents is lower compared to the respondents in Loimu’s regular salary survey (4,806€). The main reason for this could be that women’s salaries are reported significantly lower than men’s in this survey compared to Loimu’s regular salary survey. The difference in mean salaries was 293€ in favour of men in Loimu’s regular salary survey compared to 809€ in our English salary survey. This discrepancy in salaries between genders requires more analyses into the causes. 

Salary advice for members is provided by Loimu’s career services, contact urapalvelut@loimu.fi.