the country where life is good struggles to recruit foreign workers

Lakes as far as the eye can see, birch forests, northern lights and above all space: Marion Lefèvre chose Rovaniemi, in the far north of Finland, to settle for two years with her companion, himself from Lapland. . The Frenchwoman discovered the region during an Erasmus exchange:

“It’s a fairly dynamic city that remains on a human scale, with forest all around, accessible on foot from the city center. There is a quality of life that I cannot find in France.”

We could therefore imagine that the candidates jostle at the gate. Well no ! Even praised each year by the UN ranking, acclaimed by those who live there, Finland lacks arms.

The country must at least double the number of foreign workers it welcomes each year to fill all the available jobs, to compensate for the aging of the population and the flight of its talents:

“The sectors where they recruit foreigners are those in which the Finns do not want to work like cooking or hard jobs and not necessarily well paid. The natives do not want it.”

Marion Lefevre

to franceinfo

After an air gap because of the Covid-19, his business is resuming. Born in Cherbourg, a graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Brest, the Frenchwoman herself had a hard time before being able to settle in the land of reindeer and saunas:

“It’s a little weird, she testifies, Finland is still the European Union, so I expected a fairly simple administration to be able to stay. In fact, not that much! I had to make an appointment at the immigration level, to be able to justify my means to be able to meet my needs and then why I was there. “

The young woman also had to provide a number of documents to prove that she had been in a relationship for more than two years.

Finland will therefore have to put an end to this old bureaucracy if it is to recruit the 30,000 new workers it needs, if only in social services and the health sector. Agriculture, industry, and even public transport in the Helsinki region will also have to turn to foreign labor.

Measures have already been announced such as streamlining the process for obtaining a work visa, which Finnish companies had pointed out to be cumbersome and excessive delays. The government also plans to allow foreign students to extend their post-graduation stay by two years in the near future.

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