Language skills, language skills and language skills
Markku Sippola believes that a kind of a trap has been set up for foreign students attracted to Finland by offering them purely English-language studies and promising that the education qualifies them for Finnish working life.
The role of the Finnish language in the Finnish labour market needs to be reconsidered in order to integrate highly educated people who speak only passable Finnish into the Finnish labour market.
”The people I interviewed who have studied at Finnish universities with a foreign background have actively sought to study Finnish as well. Understandably, it’s been difficult when they have had to concentrate fully on their studies at the same time. However, it only takes two years to complete a master’s degree.
An interviewee, who went to study in the IT sector, got a job during the studies and kept using English as the workplace language. Two others had studied Finnish on their own and are currently working in Finland. One left because of not being able to find work.”
”In my opinion, the lack of linguistic flexibility is the biggest rigidity in the Finnish labour market. I believe that a person not speaking Finnish that well could also be accepted by the workforce and work organisation outside of the IT sector – and especially in the capital region,” Sippola thinks.
”Of course, language is also a matter of national existence for us.
However, by adding even a little flexibility in terms of language, we could perhaps make better use of the talented people.
With the exception of the IT person – who also already knew Finnish at a passable level – all the interviewees already knew the language at a good level after having been in the Finnish labour market for several years. Nevertheless, they still had difficulty finding employment due to a foreign name and – if they had been invited to an interview – the lack of Finnish skills seen there.”
”Those who initially thought they didn’t want to learn Finnish, like Ukrainian refugees waiting to return to their home country, have finally started to study it. Yes, Finnish will remain the main language on the labour market here, but could we think about organisational practices and, for example, allow the person concerned to do even some of their work in English?
In an academic workplace and in a job that requires education, it is not accepted for someone to speak broken Finnish. However, it is accepted for a waiter at a pizza shop.”
”At the university, we change the language to English right away if there is someone in the group who doesn’t speak perfect Finnish. After all, they will never learn Finnish if we always speak to them in English.”
Read more