The need to attract workers from abroad to shore up staff shortages across many sectors of the Finnish economy has been widely discussed in recent years.
Research conducted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has found that work-based immigration would provide an easy solution to the recruitment problems affecting the technology and IT sector in particular.
"The sector would benefit the most from work-based immigration, simply because the language requirements are not as high as in the social services sector, for example," Elina Pylkkänen, Undersecretary of State at the ministry, told Yle on Monday.
Finland has been aiming to attract programmers, application designers as well as application architects from abroad to fill roles within the tech sector — with moderately successful results.
In general, Pylkkänen noted, the working language within many tech companies is English, making it somewhat easier for recruiters.
However, in sectors such as social services and healthcare, where Finnish language skills and qualifications from a Finnish institute or equivalent are often required, the recruitment push has proved to be much more challenging.
Finland needs more healthcare professionals from abroad, Pylkkänen said, but they often require training in Finland too.
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