Annika Saarikko, Finland’s Minister of Finance, has declared that the country needs more workers from foreign countries as the working-age population is shrinking and the number of elderly people requiring care is rising.
Saarikko states that work-based immigration could help to improve Finland’s economic growth and jump-start the country’s employment situation. Saarikko pointed out that Finland needs an increased number of blue-collar workers, not only experts in their field, estimating that the social and health care industry alone will need 30,000 new employees by the end of 2100.
“It’s a fact that Finland’s agriculture, primary production, social and health care sector or public transport in the capital region, for example, wouldn’t be running today without workforce coming from other parts of the world,” explained Saarikko.
She followed up by mentioning, “It isn’t taking anything away from the employment of Finns. Both are needed.”
The Finnish government has set a goal of doubling work-based immigration by the end of the decade. In 2019, the Finnish Immigration Service granting nearly 9,500 first work permits to increase the number of foreigners moving to Finland for work.