Immigrant workers are first to suffer from reduced employment opportunities in recession

Deaconess Institute and congregations dream up work for people of foreign extraction

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When times are good, immigrants find work even when their knowledge of the Finnish language is not that great.
      When times are bad, they are the first ones to see their employment situation weaken.
     
In sectors suffering from labour shortages, such as the service and cleaning industries, there is work also for individuals with immigrant backgrounds, but the position of the long-term unemployed has nonetheless become more difficult.
      Such are the observations made by the Helsinki employment agencies, according to which the increase in the number of lay-offs is evident also among workers with an immigrant background.
     
In Tampere, even persons who are still in their integration training have appeared as laid-off job seekers, which is a new phenomenon. These individuals have not been in Finland for very long.
      The number of those who have arrived in the local Province of Pirkanmaa with a work permit has been nearly halved from last year’s figure, and for example some Chinese labourers stranded in the area without an extension to their labour permit have already returned to their country of origin.
     
Simultaneously brainstorming is taking place to create jobs for individuals of foreign extraction.
      A fifth of this year’s Common Responsibility Campaign’s takings has been promised towards this purpose.
      The campaign (known in Finnish as Yhteisvastuukeräys) is Finland's largest annual fundraising drive, first launched in 1950 and organised by the Finnish Lutheran Church and its Church Resources Agency.
      For example, the Helsinki Deaconess Institute’s new social enterprise Diakoniset kiinteistöpalvelut, which operates in the field of real estate services, has made an effort to recruit unemployed immigrants.
      “In time the idea is to expand this activity significantly”, explains project manager Juha Leviäkangas.
     
”Some people claim that the Somalis will not work”, Leviäkangas says. His experiences, however, have been “extremely encouraging”.
      The real estate services operation is a normal business activity, and the same working pace and results are required of the workers there as anywhere else.
      Those employed will take on responsibilities and will get accustomed to normal working rhythms, Leviäkangas says, and in turn he criticises 'endorsed hiring' on government salary support schemes, where a person is given work, say, for six months, after which he or she is routinely made redundant.
      “Such a method does not encourage workers to commit themselves.”
      Diakoniset kiinteistöpalvelut has hired its workers “until further notice”.
     
Clients are being sought from various congregations, which own a large number of properties.
      At a later stage the company plans to incorporate janitor functions and looking after the elderly, Leviäkangas explains.
      The Kirkkonummi Congregation aims to use aid from the Common Responsibility Campaign to hire immigrants as youth camp and club workers.
      In the city of Kouvola, plans are being drawn up for providing trainee positions for a couple of hundred immigrants.
     
In Helsinki, giving work to immigrants is currently merely being recommended, says head of communications Seppo Simola of the Parish Union of Helsinki.
      But even without recommendation the Hietaniemi Cemetery has employed a number of individuals of South American extraction for more than a decade, explains foreman Ari Pipatti.
      Around 1,200 people apply to work with the cemetery each year. Not more than a tenth of them can be taken on. Of those employed, around ten per cent are of foreign background.
     
The Alepa discount supermarket chain approaches similar figures.
      It provides 8-month training courses for immigrants. Milele Kitenge (see photo) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was one of the lucky ones to land a permanent job through this practice.
     
Summer jobs, too, have been in very short supply, with the Helsinki Employment and Economic Development Office reporting that the number of summer vacancies was half that of 2008.
      In June there were just under 6,900 new vacancies open, while the number of unemployed jobseekers had risen from 19,500 to more than 25,000.
      In the figures, roughly 16% of unemployed jobseekers are immigrants, but in fact there are more of them than this, for on being given Finnish citizenship through naturalisation they cease to be listed as immigrants.


Links:
  Ministry of Employment & the Economy: Employment and Economic Development Offices
  Yhteisvastuu 2009 - Common Responsibility Campaign
  Helsinki Deaconess Institute

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