Immigration on Michael’s Domain

The Finnish Dream: A Pipe Dream?

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A reality check for international students

Finland has been celebrated as the world’s happiest country for now eight years in a row . However, Finland is not only the happiest country, but also the country with one of the lowest fertility rates . In order to stabilize the pension system , Finland decided that it needs immigration, an idea very radical for a country that was 30 years ago almost as isolated from the rest of Europe as North Korea is nowadays from the rest of Asia. At that time, the international car sign for Finland was still SF for Soviet Finland (just kidding, the S obviously stands for Sweden). Finland wants to increase immigration by attracting foreign students to pursue degrees in Finland, hoping that some of them will stay in the country after graduation. Hence, Finland has become an increasingly popular destination for international students, particularly from Asia. Lured by promises of a high-quality life, excellent education, and abundant opportunities, many invest big time to pursue a degree in one of the Finnish universities . Ten years ago, university education was free for everybody (including all foreigners), but since since 2017, students from non-EU/EEA countries have needed to pay tuition fees . This was not the universities’ own decision, but mandated by the government.

Goodbye Finland

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If there is a minister in our current government who rubs me the wrong way, then it’s probably Arto Satonen, our Minister of Economic Affairs and Employment. I mean, the guy is right in his view that Finland needs much more work-based immigration, but he is delusional when he thinks that Finland will be able to compete with other European countries for the most wanted and most valuable immigrants. How otherwise could he have supported the “three-months-rule”, a law that would kick immigrants out of the country who lost their jobs and did not find a new employment within three months. This rule has been criticized by many ( https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000010770898.html ). If our incompetent Arto Satonen doesn’t think that this is a problem ( https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000010770898.html ), then it is probably because he does not know or talk with foreigners who are working in jobs with low job security. Sure, there are always immigrants willing to come to Finland (”Suomeen on kyllä tulijoita”), but why does Mr. Satonen want the rat’s tail of all potential immigrants? Other countries with better conditions and a more welcoming attitude will scoop the creme from the top. Finland starts already with massive disadvantages in the fight for the best talent: A peripheral location, dark and dirty winters, and an incomprehensible language. Mr. Satonen must have a very distorted picture of Finland’s attractiveness for highly educated foreign workers. Similar to most incompetent politicians, he generally seems not overly interested to base his policies and decisions on facts and research ( https://www.hs.fi/mielipide/art-2000011074278.html ). No, Finland is not a very attractive country for most foreigners. We have not only problems attracting international talent but also problems retaining the talent we already have within the country.Being half Finnish, I tend to forget how incompetently this country can behave towards its guests. Please read the article on Yle.fi “Kiitos Suomi ja näkemiin” ( https://yle.fi/a/74-20143543 ), if you want to know what is going wrong in this country. If we want to be able to make this country more attractive for foreigners, we first have to put a stop to the unacceptable behaviour of people who don’t understand that the future of this country depends on immigration. The current government led by prime minster Petteri Orpo is unable to help in any meaningful way, because it relies on the support of “The Finns Party” (formerly known as True Finns), a party with an arguably dangerously high percentage of convicts, ex-Nazis and other suspect individuals (similar to the AfD in Germany).According to the report by Etla (the Finnish Institute of Economic Research), higher educated foreigners are the first to leave Finland. Is this ever going to change? Mr. Satonen now gets unexpected help from President Trump. In the past, the US has been very successful in attracting and integrating foreign top talent, but the climate towards foreigners seems to be changing. Many of my colleagues working in the US are very worried about what is going on. If you happen to be both a scientist and a foreigner, you get a double hit from the current US administration. Maybe more of the talent will divert to Europe in the future.I have recently started thinking about moving back from Finland to Germany due to climate change. When the AMOC stops, Finland will freeze over, and we’ll fall back into a new ice-age with possible snow cover all year round for most of the country. Meanwhile, Germany is located precisely where global warming and the loss of the AMOC-mediated South-to-North heat transfer will likely balance out. Germany won’t be spared from extreme weather events like storms and flooding, but at least you won’t freeze to death, nor will you be grilled to death. According to the current predictions for the weakening of the AMOC and my life expectancy, I will likely still be around when this s**t hits the fan. UPDATE: A very recent analysis published in Nature concludes that a complete collapse of the AMOC is unlikely this century. Predicting the future is difficult, but at least there is hope for Finland!

Finished with Finnish?

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In her opinion piece in Helsingin Sanomat , Annikka Mutanen picked up on the predicted population decline in the numbers of Finnish people : At the end of this century, the number of people in Finland with Finnish roots will have fallen below 2 million. I won’t be around anymore to experience this, but my children have a good chance to.

Competing with immigration country heavy weights

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

There are about 10-11 Mio. foreigners living in Germany (12/2019) which is about 13% of the population. On top of this, there are 1.4 Mio refugees (statistics) .The new German government has serious plans to ease work-based immigration to Germany. There is hardly any country in Central or Northern Europe, which has not recognized the need to import workforce. Germany has experience with importing workforce. In fact, the 13% number feels low to me, but many of those foreigners that have entered Germany a long time ago have meanwhile German passports. Over the last centuries, there have been several massive waves of work-based immigration to Germany (the last major one between 1955-1975 mainly from Turkey and Italy). Perhaps that’s why you get the World’s best döners and pizzas not in Turkey or Italy, but in Germany (New Yorkers might disagree concerning the pizza).For me, it is unbelievable that the question of work-based immigration is even asked these days in Finland. There is no expert who disagrees that Finland needs work-based immigration*. Not in the future, but now. The problem is that Finland seemed to have competed successfully for being the least attractive place for work-based immigration in Western/Northern Europe. I am not talking about the weather (yes: the cold and dark are occasionally a PITA), but I am talking about the bureaucratic hurdles that even highly educated foreigners have to face when they want to come to Finland. Some progress is being made (e.g. students’ residence permits can be now as long as their studies last), and the current government’s goal is to double the rate of work-based immigration. But in the competition for the workforce, all other European countries up the ante. In order to be remotely competitive, much more has to change as Tuula Haatainen wrote in a recent opinion piece for the largest Scandinavian daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat . Unfortunately, the present system does not serve the industry well as another opinion piece from an affected entrepeneur demonstrates.*Experts who claim otherwise let their ideological biases trump their expertise. Because of their conflict of interest, their opinion should not count. It’s only an opinion; unbiased experts have the facts on their side.