Helsingin Sanomat

Shops, hair salons and barber shops will be allowed to set their opening hours freely starting on 1 January 2016, as a proposal to annul the regulations concerning shop opening hours will be approved in a presidential session on Wednesday. Such establishments will henceforth be allowed to decide freely when to open their doors to customers.

Helsinki is expecting a massive influx of immigrants. A forecast drawn up by the municipalities of the capital region indicates that the foreign-language population of Helsinki will grow by 80,000–85,000 by 2030. Nearly one-fourth, or 23 per cent, of the population is consequently forecast to speak other than Finnish, Swedish or Sami as their mother tongue.

Finland will have to recruit hundreds of new teachers due to the increase in the number of asylum seekers, the Trade Union of Education (OAJ) estimates. “The number of unaccompanied minors who have arrived in Finland this year is 2,000. A child is entitled to basic education immediately. Hundreds of new teachers are needed,” states Heljä Misukka, an education director at OAJ.