Suomi maahanmuuttomagneetiksi

Suomen missio maahanmuuttomagneetiksi--siis mitä vittua! Jossain afrikan kultarannikolla kirjoitetaan meistä tällaista. Nyton kyllä aika ottaa kovat otteet, tämä maahan menee ihan hunningolle.

lähde:
http://www.thestatesmanonline.com/pages/news_detail.php?newsid=4715§ion=7


FINLAND: The quest to be a magnet for migrants
. , 13/09/2007

By Robert Anderson, Financial Times

Finland, traditionally a country of emigration, wants to become a magnet for immigrants - but it is still searching for a strategy on how best to lure migrants and make them welcome.

The government hopes immigrants will ease labour shortages and pay the taxes that are needed to fund pensions and healthcare as the native population ages.

It is looking not just for highly skilled workers - such as the entire staff of a Russian biotech laboratory that moved to Finland because it was not being paid - but also for semi-skilled workers in service jobs such as plumbers and care staff for the growing number of old people.

Labour shortages in services have restricted the development of the sector and kept costs high. Visitors quickly spot that jobs done by immigrants in other European countries are often filled by Finns themselves.

The focus of the search is on the former Soviet Union,. Already some 47,000 Russian-speaking immigrants - about a third of the total - have been attracted by Finland's similar atmosphere and climate and the short distance home.

"In immigration we are looking eastwards," says Tarja Cronberg, the labour minister.

A pilot scheme to seek migrants has been launched at the St Petersburg consulate and another is planned in Warsaw, after mixed success trying to attract Polish shipyard workers last year.

Ministers hope to benefit from the country's higher profile, due in part to Nokia, and emphasises that more foreigners choose to study in Finland now compared to Finns studying abroad.

"We have a positive image which we can see in the number of foreign students," says Astrid Thors, minister for migration. Yet net immigration is still only 10,000 a year and even ministers are sceptical that they can really make a big difference.

"Finland is not very attractive for foreigners," admits Ms Cronberg.

Potential migrants are put off by Finland's cold image - both in terms of climate and people - its remoteness, the difficult language, and the lack of established foreign communities.

Its high taxes and costs (particularly housing) make it uncompetitive, especially as salaries at the top end of the scale are not high in comparison to the rest of Europe. Finland is still losing young workers such as nurses to Sweden, Norway and London, where real remuneration can be higher.

Finland has even stopped being such a draw for migrants from the former Soviet Union because of the recent boom in Russia and the Baltic states. "Their standard of living has increased so much that there is no very strong push any more," says Annika Forsander, head of immigration services at Helsinki city council.

But Finland has also not helped itself, because it has not made immigrants sufficiently welcome in the past.

Finland gives new migrants free Finnish lessons and help with retraining, but the work permit system is still mired in red tape, partly because of trade union opposition. Foreign students in Finland and asylum seekers struggle to win the right to work, though the government is now trying to encourage students to stay on.

The European Union named Finland in June as one of the worst offenders in putting restrictions on transferred workers. If companies seek to employ a foreigner they still have to prove that they need that kind of worker, though the government wants to phase this out.

Finland also had restrictions on workers from the new member states of eastern Europe until 2006, even though there was no threat of an influx. Policy has now been reversed and, together with Sweden, it is the only country not to have restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian workers.

Public attitudes to immigrants have also been problematic, reflecting the fact that Finnish identity has been based on homogeneity, with immigrants representing just 2.3 per cent of the population compared to 11 per cent in Sweden.

In fact, Finland's high unemployment rate has encouraged emigration, particularly to Sweden.

Net immigration only turned positive and quintupled in the 1990s when Finland began accepting emigrants from the former Soviet Union with Finnish roots. About 30,000 Ingrians are now living in Finland and another 20,000 inhabitants of the former Soviet Union are estimated to be eligible to emigrate.

Though opinion polls show that Ingrians are among the most popular immigrants, they have struggled to integrate as they no longer speak Finnish and are often indistinguishable from the much less liked Russian arrivals.

Unfortunately, the Ingrians began to emigrate to Finland just as the recession triggered by the Soviet Union's collapse began to bite. Many struggled to find jobs and some youngsters became delinquents, while others returned to Russia. Russian-speaking migrants in general complain about job discrimination and the popular media view that they are all prostitutes, spies and gangsters.

"Among employers here there is a prejudice against Russian immigrants," says Anna Leskinen of the Finnish Association of Russian Speaking Organisations.

"The greatest demand for labour is in the areas with lowest wages. The problem is that Finnish employers want unskilled employees. The immigrants are very overqualified for the vacancies that are available."

Nadja Anttonen, a 45-year-old Russian teacher of Ingrian ancestry, has had to retrain as a social worker after finding there was no demand for her skills. "It was absolutely impossible to find a job," she complains. "Practically nobody is interested in learning Russian." Even after the job centre funded her degree and diploma in social work, she and her engineer husband remain unemployed.

The labour ministry estimates a quarter of foreigners are unemployed, hardly an advertisement for those considering moving to Finland. "We need to focus first on these unemployed immigrants," says Ms Cronberg.

For further reading on the Ingrian Finn community, go to www.ft.com/finland2007