“We are not a burden”—It is hard for an immigrant to get a fair chance in the Finnish job market
The Job Fair for Internationals, held in Helsinki in September 2024, drew around 5,000 jobseekers with foreign backgrounds, showing the strong demand for employment opportunities among immigrants. PHOTO: RECRYTORI
Tuiaara Linnala
Published 27.11.2024 12:30
Work opportunities are among the most important reasons for migrating to Finland. At the end of 2023, there were approximately 400,000 working-age people of foreign origin living in Finland, according to Statistics Finland. For many years, their employment rate had been growing. But in 2023, it started to fall.
At the same time, another persistent issue has not vanished. In every age group, the unemployment rate of people with foreign backgrounds is higher than their Finnish-born counterparts.
Also, the quality of the working life is often worse for the immigrant. According to several studies, workers with foreign backgrounds more often must unwillingly work part-time or in positions that do not match their education.
Something can be explained by the challenges in adapting to a new society. These include, for example, learning Finnish. But it is only a part of the story. To get a better picture, Satakieli reached for people who have first-hand experience from the Finnish job market as a foreigner.
We learned that the same problems have troubled immigrant job seekers already for years.
“They could not say directly that they wanted to hire a Finn”
Raja Rymbai moved to Finland in 2020. He is originally from India but came via Italy. There he had worked for an organization called Slow Food, which advocates for sustainable and ethical food practices. He chose Finland because he saw this country as “a progressive place, with many growth opportunities and the possibility to work in English.”
Rymbai holds a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and video production, as well as a master’s degree in communications and marketing. He has extensive experience with major Indian newspapers, contributing to high-circulation publications and developing new websites. He has also created content for top media outlets across India. In 2006, he was the production editor for the documentary Abandoned Brides that won the Daniel Pearl Award in New York for excellence in journalism.
“It’s a very prestigious award, but it holds no value in Finland,” he says.
Rymbai tells that he has sent a number of applications to positions that fit his qualifications and experience but has never gotten an answer back.
“I’ve done so much work in my life, and now I can’t do anything related to my profession in this country.”
Currently, Rymbai works in a restaurant to cover his living costs while continuing a search for work that would match his skills. He has learned that also getting a job in the kitchen can be difficult, even though one would have the needed skills.
Rymbai tells an example. Previously he applied for a cook position that suited his experience perfectly. Even though he holds a hygiene pass and knows the relevant kitchen vocabulary in Finnish, he was not called for an interview.
In their response, the employer suggested submitting a CV in Finnish next time.
“I understood that they couldn’t directly say they wanted a Finnish person,” Rymbai says.
In certain jobs, inadequate Finnish skills can be a real problem. But often, Rymbai feels, the language is just an excuse. The real reason is that the employers think that a person born outside of Finland does not understand the local mentality.
And then there are the attitudes towards immigrants in Finnish society in general.
“Finnish population might see immigrants as non-educated, who have come for social benefits. This kind of comments comes out of ignorance.”
Rymbai feels that the people get brainwashed by politics. They forget how many people immigrate to Finland because of the professional opportunities.
“What we bring is a gift to Finland, not the curse some might think,” he says.
“We aren’t a burden, we’re here to support the entire country. We’re not just hands asking for a handout.”
“The assumption is that if you are not born here, you can’t understand the Finnish mentality”
Even perfect Finnish skills seem not always to be enough. In 2021, Martin-Éric Racine’s story hit the headlines when he was denied a job with the City of Helsinki. According to Helsingin Sanomat, who reported about the story, the city’s argument was that Racine could not be hired because a native-level Finnish speaker was required.
The decision was made despite Racine having the highest-level Finnish language certificate.
“It was an illegal excuse,” Racine says now.
For him it seems that for many Finns the fact that a person is a foreigner still weighs more than their skills or talents.
“The assumption is that if you are not born here, you can’t understand the Finnish mentality, and therefore you are not going to be able to deal with Finnish customers the way it is expected.”
Canadian-born Racine has been living in Finland for more than 20 years. He currently works at the Finnish National Defense University as a language teacher, as well as a media instructor.
During his time in Finland, he has seen the idea of an “average foreigner” change. In the 1990s, for the few foreigners that were here, it was enough if they were westerners and tried to learn the language, Racine says.
“From the mid-2000s onwards, the typical idea of a newcomer became a 3rd world country refugee who has no education or qualification and who is living out of Kela benefits.”
Also, his own thoughts about future prospects in Finland have changed for the worse. For him, the decisive moment was when he realized that even a foreign name can lead to people assuming the person can’t speak Finnish well.
“If someone born here has difficulties finding, for example, a place for a graduation project just because they don’t have a Finnish name, there is no point in trying with this country”.
“Immigrants are portrayed as a group, not as individuals”
The prejudices experienced by Raja Rymbai and Martin-Éric Racine have been verified in research. In 2017, Akhlaq Ahmad, a docent at the Helsinki University, conducted an experiment where he sent the same work application with different names to a number of companies.
The result showed that names with foreign origin got noticeably fewer callbacks than the applications with Finnish names.
The problem has not vanished since, Ahmad says. Current antidiscrimination laws are not enough to create equal labor opportunities for people with different backgrounds.
“Employers think that it is easier to integrate Finnish workers because they already know the language and culture.”
But as Ahmad’s research showed, employers can draw far-reaching conclusions from a person’s name only. That name may belong to a second-generation immigrant. They were born and raised in Finland, they have gone through the Finnish school system and know the social culture of Finland as well as anyone else. Still, they get fewer call-backs.
“When everything [in the applications] is essentially the same, the reason for the different outcome could only be discrimination. People simply attach negative sentiments to immigrants,” Ahmad explains.
Someone from outside can be perceived as a threat, even on an unconscious level, Ahmad says. Same people may enjoy dining in Turkish, Thai, or Chinese restaurants but not welcome the people from these cultures in the job market. The reason may be, for example, the fear that the newcomers would threaten the livelihood or existing power structure of society.
Also, the image of immigrants in the media plays a role, Ahmad argues.
“Immigrants are portrayed as a group, but not individuals. You get the feeling that they’re all like this. Whereas native Finns are treated as individuals.”
Ahmad acknowledges the work government institutions have done to resolve the issues, but at the same time feels it is not enough.
“Successful integration of immigrants into the labor market extends well beyond government institutions.”