Goodbye Finland

By jeltsch on Sat, 03/01/2025 - 00:33
A winter landscape featuring a frozen lake surrounded by snow-covered trees. The sun is low in the sky, casting a soft golden glow through the mist. In the foreground, "GOODBYE FINLAND" is carefully imprinted in the fresh snow, creating a striking contrast against the untouched white surface.

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!