Translation by Apropos Lingua.
According to Akava, the Confederation of Unions for Professional and Managerial Staff in Finland, we need a new approach to immigration policy, because the shortage of skilled workers threatens to obstruct growth opportunities in many sectors and regions.
“Recent information has highlighted the concerns of international experts working in the field of technology regarding the tightening policies on work-based immigration and the negative atmosphere. To avoid sawing off the branch we are sitting on in terms of enabling economic growth, we must change our work-based immigration policy. We believe that the policies outlined in the Government Programme should be reconsidered, particularly in order to increase the availability of skilled labour, and the measures that threaten to weaken the conditions for economic growth should be withdrawn. At Akava, we believe that the labour market test, or the process of determining the availability of labour, should be abandoned,” says President of Akava Maria Löfgren in a statement (in Finnish).
According to TEK’s Labour Market Director Teemu Hankamäki, it is absolutely essential to make sure that as many people as possible who come to Finland to study and complete a degree here will also remain in the country.
“It would be a mistake to imagine that Finland is somehow automatically attractive as a place to live and work for university-educated professionals,” says Teemu Hankamäki.
In its position (in Finnish) for the budget session, Akava demands that everyone who completes a university degree in Finland should be automatically granted a permanent residence permit.
In addition, all university degrees should include more Finnish and Swedish language courses and sufficient resources should be allocated to these tasks.
“Unfortunately, the options in the labour market are still somewhat more limited for those without any Finnish or Swedish skills. This is true especially for public sector jobs,” says Hankamäki.
Employment-oriented language and integration training should also begin immediately once the person has arrived in the country, regardless of permit processing times. In addition, services that support integration, guidance and advice should all be gathered in one place.
No to ageism
In its position, Akava also considers it important to eradicate ageism from the labour market.
According to Akava, ageism can be reduced by changing attitudes across all sectors of society and by developing easily accessible legal remedies, such as granting the National Non-Discrimination and Equity Tribunal the right to order compensation.
Jobseekers should be guaranteed the right to be informed about the reasons for recruitment decisions.
The Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland TEK belongs to Akava and is Akava's second-largest affiliate.