Foreigners in Finland and the atitutes of the Finish society towards Foreigners

Finland, too, has its share of racism and hostility to foreigners. The main reason for this was the period of economic recession in the 1990s that was accompanied by high unemployment. Work is being done to increase tolerance towards immigrants and refugees by integrating them into Finnish society. Instruction in the Finnish language and vocational training are essential elements in the integration process. The Act on the Integration of Immigrants and Reception of Asylum Seekers became effective in 1999.

http://www.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=25787

The increase of immigration has created a number of problems. The unemployment of foreign citizens is still over 30 per cent while for the whole country 8 per cent. Negative attitudes and xenophobia among the main population towards foreigners are still present.

Arrangements for refugees in present-day Finland are based on the Geneva Convention of 1951, which defines refugee status and the right to asylum. Finland took its first refugees from Chile between 1973 and 1977 and from 1979 onwards from Vietnam. In 2002 Finland's refugee quota was 750 a year, but there was pressure to raise it permanently to 1000. Most of the country's 22,000 refugees went there as asylum-seekers, particularly from the former Soviet Union after 1992.

Foreigners in Finland

Published April 2003 / Statistics update September 2005

Further statistics

:http://www.stat.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto_en.html

2006: 27708 Refugees

The Attitudes of “Native Finns” Towards Immigrants

The attitudes that Finnish people have towards immigrants depend on the immigrant’s nationality. In other words, the negative attitudes that many Finns have towards immigration can’t be explained just by a perceived socio-economic threat. If it was only a socio-economic threat, then it would be logical that Finns would consider people from the Nordic countries the least wanted group in Finland, because this group would be the most competitive in bilingual Finland (Liebkind 73). Swedish is spoken widely in the Nordic countries, and Swedish is also an official language of Finland, along with Finnish. However, Finns have the most negative attitudes towards those groups of nationalities whose appearance and culture are most distinctive from those of Finns’ and who come from less wealthy countries than Finland. Surveys have shown that Somalians (along with Africans in general), Turks and Kurds are the most disliked nationalities by Finns (Jaakkola 71-74). http://www.tay.fi/FAST/FIN/SOCPOL/ml-multi.html

Employment and Work Opportunities

Many immigrants are unemployed in Finland. The reasons for the high unemployment include poor language skills, a lack of social networking, and prejudice against foreign workers. Immigrants find work via Finnish friends and acquaintances or by employing themselves in their own businesses. One can find work, for example, via the Employment Office, by answering ads in the paper or by handing in a resume at various recruitment agencies.

... It is difficult to determine the equivalency of training and academic degrees as know-how capital when applying for work. A further impediment to finding work is that the Finnish job market has put a special emphasis on the importance of work experience in Finland. (B. Prospects)

Immigrants and foreign workers are employed to a great extent to work in cleaning jobs or in restaurants. Many immigrants are setting up ethnic restaurants and small shops of their own. Having a recommendation from a Finn increases the chances of getting employed (B. Matalapalkkatyöt).

The citizens of Western European countries and the United States have been the most successful in finding employment, followed by Ingrians from Estonia

http://www.uta.fi/~jj72525/finnish_institutions.html

Attitudes Towards Immigrants

The majority of Finns believe that foreigners enrich the cultural life in Finland and increase the tolerance Finns have towards other nations. On the other hand, more than half of the Finns consider it to be likely that immigration to Finland will cause unemployment. For this reason it is not surprising that Finns are the most negative towards foreign jobseekers and those moving to Finland because of financial reasons. (D. Jaakkola, Suhtautuminen 60)

How tolerant or intolerant Finns are towards immigrants depends on many things. For example, those who are most tolerant towards immigrants are, in general, well-educated people, women, people living in Helsinki, those who have travelled and those who have contact with immigrants living in Finland (D. Jaakkola, Asenteet 38). The most intolerant, based on statistics, are the unemployed, men, people living in rural areas, housewives and senior citizens (D. Jaakkola, Asenteet ²).

It is fairly simple to draw conclusions based on this information.

One can conclude that education increases tolerance towards immigrants, because education increases one´s knowledge of the world and other cultures. For this reason also, women are more tolerant because in Finland more women go on to higher education than men. It is also clear that when one has the opportunity to interact with immigrants, one starts to know them as people and this raises awareness and helps clear misconceptions. Therefore, in Helsinki, where there are more immigrants than in rural areas, people have more contact with foreigners and are more tolerant towards them.

As Jaakkola has mentioned (D. Asenteet 14), one reason for intolerance towards immigrants by people who have had less training is that they are afraid that they would have to compete with immigrants for limited resources, such as work and housing. This might be because people who have had less training often have jobs that do not require much training, such as cleaning work. Many immigrants are employed in such jobs.

The jobless rate among foreigners in Finland is one of the highest in the European Union. In September it stood at a staggering 25% versus 28% a year ago, according to the most recent ministry of labour statistics. That compares with 7% during the same month for the whole population.

Olli Sorainan, a ministry of labour senior advisor, said the foreign unemployment range in the EU is, depending on the country, between 10% and 20%.http://glyphian.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/the-near-perfect-republic/