Finnish enterprises are sluggish on recruitment of immigrants

Confederation of Finnish Industries and Ministry of Employment and the Economy urge companies to take more active measures

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Few large Finnish-based companies pursue an active recruitment policy of workforce of foreign origin.
      Helsingin Sanomat sent a questionnaire to the 50 largest companies employing people in Finland as to whether or not they have set up some kind of programme or taken some measures to hire employees with foreign backgrounds. A total of 36 companies sent their responses, and seven out of them reported they had established such a programme or taken such steps.
     
Officials at the Ministry of Employment and the Economy (TEM) hope that Finnish companies would add some vim and vigour to their recruitment of immigrants. When the Finnish economy starts to grow and the population simultaneously gets older, certain fields are expected to face a shortage of skilled labour.
      ”The number of these [firms] should be much bigger. Enterprises should expand their recruiting. In the future, the conventional methods will not necessarily be sufficient when trying to hire skilled employees”, says Liisa Männikkö, who is in charge of a project on diversity in working life at TEM.
      Labour market specialist Riitta Wärn from the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) is also surprised at Finnish entrepreneurs’ sluggish attitude towards employing immigrants.
      ”I feel that it is very poor planning for the future, if a firm does not have the foresight to estimate what its demand for labour would be later”, Wärn notes.
     
The fact that the company takes no active measures to recruit immigrants was blamed on the hitherto slight demand and on equality: because of equality issues, a programme that is focused on employees of foreign origin is regarded as difficult.
      Both EK’s Wärn and the Employment Ministry’s Männistö state that it is true that the demand is dependent on the field concerned. The greatest shortage of labour is predicted to affect the services sector in general, including care services.
      Wärn says that for example the real estate and construction sectors are already at the moment experiencing difficulties when trying to find people who could fill vacancies.
      Over the second quarter of the year, the employment and economic development offices had a total of 48,600 unoccupied jobs, 41 per cent of which were hard-to-fill vacancies that had been open more than one month. The figure is eight percentage points higher than in the previous year.
     
Both labour market specialists are on the other hand amazed at the equality argument put forward by companies. The purpose of Finland’s Equality Act is to ban discrimination of jobseekers based for example on their ethnic origin.
     
At the same time, the Equality Act makes it possible that the employment of groups that find it unusually difficult to get employed can be supported.
      ”It is not discriminative if a company contemplates where they could find skilled employees in the future. The opposite means that the company lives in the present moment without giving a thought to the future”, Wärn says.
      Among respondents, the company with the longest experience in the active recruitment of immigrants was the Helsinki Cooperative Society Elanto (HOK-Elanto).
     
HOK-Elanto has been providing immigrants with professional sales training courses since 2000 in order to secure the availability of workforce. In addition to the courses run in Finland, HOK-Elanto has also brought employees directly from abroad.
      ”Before the recession, we could have as many as 40 chef vacancies at the same time”, argues Personnel Director Antero Levänen.
     
According to Levänen, their experiences relating both to training and direct recruiting are almost purely positive.
      ”We have found excellent customer service staff”, Levänen notes.
      Levänen estimates that many companies abandoned such programmes as the recession struck. According to him, discussions on such programmes are gradually beginning anew, at least in the retail sector.
      ”However, it very much depends on employers’ attitudes”, Levänen adds.
     
In addition to HOK-Elanto, some other Finnish companies have also begun to prepare themselves for the future shortage of skilled workforce.
     
The Nordic construction company Skanska has started to arrange apprenticeship training for jobless immigrants. The programme includes the basic examination in house building, through which it is possible to be employed by Skanska. The training is carried out in cooperation with the City of Helsinki and the employment and economic development office.
     
Sodexo, a company running staff restaurants, is involved for example in the Moniverkko project that is carried out jointly by the University of Helsinki’s Palmenia Centre for Continuing Education and Diversa Consulting. The English title of the undertaking is the Multinetwork Project, and it will organise recruitment events for immigrants and train superiors to recognise immigrants’ competence and skills. Even a recruitement guidebook on good practices is under way.
     
Itella, the former Finland Post, is involved in several programmes promoting employment of immigrants.
      The Finnish Children and Youth Foundation is carrying out the OK! Immigrants Programme. The purpose of the project is to offer immigrants aged 17 to 25 working-life courses and practical work training, through which they have a possibility to find employment.
     
     
FACTFLE: Unused workforce
     
The number of working-age population will start to decline in Finland in 2010, as the so-called post-war baby-boomers are gradually reaching retirement age.
      By 2040, the proportion of working-age population will fall from 66 per cent to 58 per cent, Statistics Finland predicts.
     
The Ministry of Employment and the Economy estimates that the decline in workforce will lead to a shortage of labour particularly in the services sector, including care services, social and health services, as well as in industrial production.
     
The Pellervo Economic Research (PTT) calculated in 2008 that unemployed immigrants who are fit for work as well as jobseekers who have remained outside the workforce form a labour reserve of about 20,000 people.
      At the end of 2009, one quarter of Finland’s foreign workforce was unemployed, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy estimated.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.9.2010


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Recession increases unemployment among foreign residents (15.9.2010)

See also:
  Helsinki: city of immigrants (2.3.2010)
  Higher employment level for immigrants would save Helsinki millions (3.10.2008)

Links:
  Confederation of Finnish Industries, EK
  Ministry of Employment and the Economy: YES - Equality is Priority

ELINA KERVINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
elina.kervinen@hs.fi