The Finnish government remains immersed in its financial austerity plan and major reform of the immigration system. The Nordic country has been in an economic recession since 2023 and has one of the worst unemployment rates in the EU (8.4%), surpassed only by Spain and Greece. In this context, the coalition government formed by conservative Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, with the far-right Finns Party and three other conservative parties, has set itself the goal of drastically cutting public spending and tightening immigration rules, justifying that these measures will serve to save public finances.
The Government has presented the budget proposal for the year 2025 that includes a reduction of 60 million euros in integration programs, which in practice implies that the Executive will delegate the functions that will be carried out by the municipalities. According to the government, the reforms of the Integration Act aim to strengthen the public budget, in addition to making “immigrants responsible for their own integration in the country,” according to Interior Minister Mari Rantanen, a member of the far-right party.
The cuts are expected to significantly affect the compensation city councils receive for hosting asylum seekers, as well as the country’s official language education programs. Helsinki City Council immigration spokesman Glen Gassen said the measures made it very difficult to continue training programs: “We cannot leave people without services and expect them to learn Finnish in front of a mirror at home. It is still very difficult to find a job in Finland without knowing Finnish or Swedish,” he said.
The capital council also stressed that “immigration has boosted employment growth and significantly increased the working-age population in the capital in recent years.”
The country needs foreigners to work
Another of the controversial measures that the government is launching at the beginning of the political year is the “120-day law”, which provides for the expulsion of people with a work residence permit if they lose their job and do not find a new one after three months.
Academic experts, the country’s Chamber of Commerce and trade unions have denounced that the anti-immigration policy adopted by the executive is harming precisely the economy, which needs foreign workers to keep certain services and sectors functioning. Despite the rising unemployment rate, Finland continues to face a severe shortage of skilled labour and a shortage of workers such as cooks or car mechanics.
The early childhood and primary education sector is also facing increasing demand for labour, and there is a chronic shortage of workers in social services and the health sector. However, the fact that many of these jobs have strict language requirements makes it difficult to attract foreign labour, experts say. Another strategic industrial sector for the country is technology companies, in which their staff largely depends on foreign workers.
Degraded image of the country
Several business organizations suggest that all of these sectors could benefit from attracting more skilled workers from abroad. The Chamber of Commerce also criticizes the fact that the government’s immigration reforms “increase uncertainty for immigrants,” which also affects “the country’s ability to be an attractive destination” for people to settle and work.
The University of Helsinki pointed out that these measures have indirectly damaged the university’s reputation as an employer of academics and researchers, and Business Finland expressed concern that “international experts have perceived the government’s policy as a sign of lack of recognition and that Finland does not want to retain foreign talent.”
Finland attracts a quarter of foreign workers requiring a work visa from four countries; Brazil, India, the Philippines and Vietnam, where the government is running talent recruitment campaigns. However, the social and political debate on immigration that has led the far-right to become the second largest force in parliament is starting to worry employers’ organisations: “The situation is untenable, Finland is expelling the people who make economic growth possible from the country,” Juhani Nokela, public relations director of the Finnish Academy of Technology (TEK), said in a press release.
In a survey conducted by TEK in collaboration with the Finnish Engineers Association, which included more than 1,000 foreign workers in the technology sector, it was revealed that more than 80% of respondents disagreed with the statement that Finland would be a better place for immigrants in five years. The survey also revealed that only half would recommend the country as a place of residence for foreign workers.
Among the reasons why they would not do so, it is worth highlighting that more than 41% of those surveyed have experienced situations of discrimination in the labor market.
Immigration ‘must be rationalised’
Finance Minister and spokeswoman for the ultra party, Riika Purra, often says in her speeches that the country’s immigration policy “needs to be streamlined,” referring to spending less public money. But for Pasi Saukkonen, a researcher and immigration expert at the University of Helsinki, the government’s message to immigrants is clear: “We want to make Finland a country you don’t want to live in.”
Also among the immigration reforms to be implemented in the fall is a proposal to bar illegal immigrants from accessing the public health system, allowing them to access only hospital emergency departments.
The government also justifies this measure in the context of budget cuts, but the law has been harshly criticized by doctors’ associations, who consider it “very problematic and harmful.”
In April, the Finnish government approved a first set of measures to discourage immigration, which included reducing refugee intake quotas, tightening the criteria for applying for asylum in the country, and reducing the length of residence permits for refugees. Finland saw a 70% increase in net immigration between 2022 and 2023, meaning that nearly 58,000 people settled in the country, a figure four times higher than in 2015, at the height of the European refugee crisis. More than a third of immigrants come from Ukraine, but also, significantly, from Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines and Bangladesh. Regarding refugees, according to the Eurostat index, the country received 4,450 asylum applications in 2023, which represents approximately 1 refugee per thousand inhabitants in a country of 5.5 million citizens.
