- By NET Web Desk
Like many Western countries battling weak population growth, few are feeling the effects as sharply as Finland. With the world’s one of the best living standards and a tag of being the happiest nation on the planet, Finland should be flooded by people wanting to relocate, but surprisingly it faces an acute workforce shortage.
According to a report in Mint recruiter, Saku Tihverainen from agency Talented Solutions told AFP, “It’s now widely acknowledged that we need a spectacular number of people to come to the country,”
According to the UN, by 2030 the “old-age dependency ratio” in Finland will rise to 47.5 as compared to the current 39.2 over-65s per 100 working-age people.
To smooth the running of public services and shut the imminent pensions deficit the nation needs to double immigration levels to 20,000-30,000 a year says the government
Despite scoring high in international comparisons for quality of life, freedom, and gender equality, with little corruption, crime, and pollution Finland still struggles with its anti-immigrant sentiment. The opposition far-right Finns Party and Western Europe’s most homogenous society are other challenges that check immigration.
Talent Boost program aims to make the country more attractive internationally, in part through local recruitment schemes. It’s in its fourth year, here the recruit health workers from Spain, metalworkers from Slovakia, and IT and maritime experts from Russia, India, and Southeast Asia
Considering OECD’s largest skilled worker shortage, joint careers sites are created to recruit overseas talent by Finnish startups
The capital’s mayor, Jan Vapaavuori, said to AFP, Startups “have told me that they can get anyone in the world to come and work for them in Helsinki, as long as he or she is single,”
Complaints of widespread reluctance to recognise overseas experience or qualifications, as well as prejudice against non-Finnish applicants, are common among many foreigners.
Mayor Vapaavuori has turned increasingly to international PR firms to help raise the city’s profile & is optimistic about Finland’s ability to attract talent from Asia in the future and believes people’s priorities will have changed once international mobility ramps up again post-coronavirus.