Employment among immigrants has improved since the 1990s, according to a new report from Pellervo Economic Research.
Researchers followed people some 58,000 foreign citizens who moved to Finland in 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2006. They tracked their progress in working life either until 2013 or until the individual left Finland.
They found that those who moved to Finland in the mid-90s had accumulated an average of just one year's employment during their first four years in the country. Those who came a decade later had more than double that amount of working time in their first four years.
On average, immigrants in the study had been in employment for 40 percent of their time in Finland, according to data from the Pensions Centre and Statistics Finland.
Gender pay gap
"Although the average figures don't look too good, there has been a positive development in the background," said economist Henna Busk.
The research also found big differences in the pay of migrant men and migrant women. The median income of foreign men in the study was 19,000 euros, while foreign women's median annual income was just 11,000 euros.
Busk said that migrant women might find it difficult to get into working life if they come from a culture where women don't usually work outside the home. Language difficulties might also affect earnings.
"If they are at home with the children, and not in working life, then their language skills don't develop quickly," said Busk.
The study found that younger migrants found it easier to enter working life than older ones, and that migrants from Estonia and southern and eastern Europe had better employment prospects than those from Somalia and the Middle east.