American-born Technopolis CEO Keith Silverang challenges Finland to take risks with regard to immigration

“Finland needs professionals from abroad; the country lacks a properly thought-out immigration policy”

Keith Silverang

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By Katja Kuokkanen
     
      CEO Keith Silverang of the listed company Technopolis does not want to see Finland filled with unemployed professors.
      Hence he does not suggest that only the highly-educated academic elite should be lured in from abroad.
      Instead, the country needs capable engineers, sales personnel, and entrepreneurs: diligent individuals who produce the drive required by society, and Individuals who know what people in the world want and need.
     
“Finland’s problem is that its population is ageing, and yet the country does not have an immigration policy programme that would bring in people with the required know-how, or that would encourage capable people to stay”, Silverang points out.
      Silverang himself is a rarity: an American with a business degree who has worked his way up to become one of the few CEOs of foreign background heading up a listed company in Finland.
     
In Silverang’s opinion, from the point of view of the future nothing is as important as developing a coherent immigration policy programme to reel in workforce from abroad.
     
“If the very word immigration has negative connotations attached to it, well, so be it. Then let’s call it a people-searching programme instead. One has to take risks and try new things. Trying to mend the old only leads to an endless cycle of compromises.”
      Silverang proposes a campaign geared towards the people of reasonably developed but overpopulated countries such as India and China.
      “Finland needs to set up a committee, the task of which is to invite students from abroad and to persuade them to stay. The committee needs to identify what kind of know-how is needed, and how such individuals can be attracted to come to Finland. And the objectives have to be presented numerically.”
     
”This is the time for action”, echoes Outi Torniainen, Senior Vice President of Communication and Marketing at FinPro, a global expert network established by Finnish companies, with a national task for promoting the growth and competitiveness of Finnish companies through internationalisation.
      “The task of attracting workers from abroad has been left to the companies. The stints by such foreign workers typically last for three years, but this is not permanent immigration. These people will not stay here and settle for good.”
     
The Finnish companies should be able to offer their foreign workers meaningful tasks, but from the national point of view preferably in the so-called “spearhead fields” in particular.
      Such fields include information technology, elevators, cranes, and diesel engines on the engineering side, plus the environmentally friendly technology, the whole “Cleantech” cluster.
      “This is a big job, but one worth doing properly. Without a budget, however, it will remain unrealised. The Finns are good engineers, but not so good at marketing products or countries”, Torniainen points out.
     
“Attracting workforce from abroad is not topical right now”, responds project manager Tapani Kojonsaari from the Ministry of the Interior's Migration Department.
      Kojonsaari heads a support project for the migration programmes. Two million euros from the European Social Fund have been reserved for the project for 2008-2013.
      “In the planning of the pulling power strategy we are not in the campaign stage yet. First we will have to establish in which fields additional workforce is required and conversely where it is not needed.”
     
Why then would the experts and specialists of the world want to come to Finland?
      Is the land of the dark winters and troubled minds only suited for those who seek good social security?
      “Finland is a beautiful country, where there are not too many people and earthquakes and other natural disasters do not pose a threat. Highly educated Indians and Chinese seek opportunities from the West. They long for good quality of life and for challenging work and the chance to make friends and lovers”, Silverang says.
     
Silverang wants to see a clear distinction between Finland’s refugee policy and the efforts to attract competent workers from abroad.
      In his view the often-heated debate has concentrated too much on the externals at the expense of content.
      “The white skin or the genotype does not make one a Finn. The Finns have a healthy set of values and I am happy to bring up my children here. On the humanitarian immigration side one must take care of one’s obligations without making a fuss about it.”
      “What we must not do is to think that when things are going fairly well in Finland, we can just rest on our laurels and turn in on ourselves.”
     
In 2009 Finland accepted 7,790 immigrants from outside the UE and EFTA/EEA while 2,162 applicants were rejected.
      The most work permit applications were filed by citizens of Russia (2,901), Ukraine (1,038), China (806), and Turkey (527).
     
The largest group of professionals to seek employment in Finland were cleaners (1,197), followed by chefs and cooks (1,090), garden workers (753), truck and articulated lorry drivers (569), plumbers (518), and farm workers (505).
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 29.3.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Survey: More than half want tighter immigration controls (31.3.2010)
  Survey: Finns´ attitudes toward immigration have become more negative (15.3.2010)

See also:
  NEWS ANALYSIS: Immigration debate enters new phase (30.3.2010)

Links:
  Technopolis

KATJA KUOKKANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
katja.kuokkanen@hs.fi