Language barrier is a natural bulwark against Southern Europeans trying to get a job in Finland

Friday, 24 August 2012
Finnish people who are sensitive about immigrants coming to Finland and taking their jobs need not worry. There is a natural barrier - Finnish language.

People who say Chinese language or the Mandarin is tough should try the Finnish language. Desperate southern European seeking to get a job in their lives, these jobs are here in Finland in abundance. As their own home economies are constricted with debt and lack of competitiveness, opportunities are plentiful in Finland but one barrier stand clear - the language.

For example, the Tampere Employment and Economic Development Office has lately been receiving far more contacts from Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy than before.
The lack of Finnish language skills lowers an applicant’s chances of landing a job.

Through the European -wide employment service, EURES, the adviser Kati Ahonen said to Yle, Finland's national broadcaster, that new emails from southern Europe arrive almost daily.
“Job seekers are sending us their CVs and applications and telling us about themselves. It’s worth noting that the majority of them have a higher education,” she said to Yle.

The applicants include experts in healthcare, engineering and IT, sectors that are in high demand in Finland.

Ahonen says that language skills are so crucial in Finland that the IT sector is the only field where one can get by with a weak knowledge of Finnish.

To study the Finnish language is like trying to be left handed at old age. It is hard and as such the European dream of free movement of labour is good for countries where English is a commonly used language in places of work such as Sweden, Denmark and to some extent Norway. For Finland it can take years but the langauge will still not be known.
by Scancomark.se Team

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