WORK IN FINLAND

[antstar]

And the thing is, IF EU laws say the national language of Europe is now Spanish then what happens then?

Flavit Jehovah et Dissipati Sunt

The Lord works in mysterious ways!

[raamv]

I dont see where more and more jobs in Finland require speaking English!! If the customers are Finnish, where is the need to serve in English?

I speak Finnish 'cause I live in Finland. That was a no-brainer when I moved here 10 years ago.

Many many companies, small and large, are expecting more and more employees to have some sort of knowledge of English. Not because they are serving English speaking people in Finland but because more of these companies are being swallowed by non-Finnish corporations and whose company language is English or because some of their important customers are outside of Finland.

I am a consultant in the business arena and here's a list of just a few companies I've worked with who surprisingly (?) expect their workers (both blue-collar and/or white-collar ) to speak something passibly English.. Skanska, YIT, Orion-Pharma, Uponor, UPM, Inspecta, Veho and Lindström to name a few. These companies do not insist upon their employees speaking English because they are serving foreign people in Finland...they must speak English to communicate with colleagues and customers living outside of Finland.

I do understand that the Finnish workplaces are expecting everyone to communicate in English. But by and large, those are for the reasons that you detailed.
OTOH; a foreigner does not qualify for positions ( See karhunkoski's post on no one wanting to interview people who dont speak Finnish.) when they dont speak Finnish at all unless they have niche skills, recommended contacts ( sometimes even these are hard ). and it Takes a LOONG time to get those kind of contacts who will forward your resume or recommend you to their company.
People dont understand this when they start to apply for jobs and dont get a response and start complaining that this country is biased.
Employers fully understand the gravity of the situation and do work on trying to solve these issues, but the they take a lot of time to change organizational culture.

Moreover, I ve noticed that the foreign workers tend to ghettoize themselves, dont sit around coffee table discussions, have lunch with colleagues, stick to their own etc and then complain that they are lonely and isolated.. These are "cultural things" that they should strive to understand when they come here to work apart from the language ( I am still struggling with my effort on this too but I ve progressed amazingly by using Finnish at every opportunity that I get and use English only when I am doing my job as I still dont know some terminology. but I ve taken upon a challenge to do things in Finnish within a year's time. lets see what happens)
I work in the ICT sector and in business management arena where I a lot of English and Finnish. In some cases, I do handle conversations in Finnish to facilitate local discussions which I understand to some extent. Without which, I would not be where I would be).
Even for a person like me with vast experience in different areas in the ICT, job transfer, promotions or higher positions within and other companies are extremely difficult given my extremely niche skills that are very hard to find ( e.g. I dont qualify for a position dealing with a customer. Period. Even if I desire, not that I do, I fully understand the position of my company and the manager, no matter how much a friend they are with me, that I dont get that job without fluent Finnish/Swedish).

These days, the people who dont speak English in the workplace are working in the back-end of the jobs while the ones who do, work with international colleagues..this is not rocket science to figure out who does what!!
The point of the discussion was that Foreigners want the Finnish to be discounted as opposed to accepting it willingly and striving hard to find the right way to learn it.

[raamv]

But that does not mean that I would like to be served in English.

Totally agree with this. I mean the Finnish system is getting there.. It has taken our Southern Neighbors only 20 years to realize that their integration program really works..
so it ll take mebbe 10-20 for this to work here...
( One day at Stockholm will prove it to you..Listen to an Asian looking or African looking person when they start to speak..: Perfect Swedish flows outta their veins)..

[sinikala]

But that does not mean that I would like to be served in English.

Companis will not change their working language to english for one or two foreigners, they instead do not hire immigrants.

You both miss the point that Cory made very well. English is the language in many companies such as the company for which I work. The offical language was already English even before I arrived ... even though there were zero foreigners working there... only Finns. For a good while there was me and 180 Finns. But like many Finnish companies, lots of their business is from abroad, and folk from abroad tend not to speak Finnish.

You will have died of old age far before joblife has turned into one where finnish no longer is requirement for majority of duties in Finland.

And in turn, I think you will live to see the day when many of those jobs which require fluency in the Finnish language have been offshored to Romania, India and China. The jobs which are most secure are the ones with an international aspect = English language.

Exports are what brings home the bacon, the future of Finland lies in selling expertise and technology to the rest of the world. Domestic service industries are not going to help the Finnish economy (0/10 to you know who).

The point is not about foreigners with basic Finnish language skills providing counter service in English in Stockmann, it's the perception that some Finnish companies and the recruitment process in Finland are perhaps a little behind the times. Anecdotal evidence that even with the right skill-set, and when there is an obvious shortage of skilled workers, it is notoriously hard to get an in with a Finnish company. This will change. This is changing. But slowly.

[raamv]

Agree with the blue fish ( what a rarity)...
but I would like to add that the system have realized this and are working to strengthen the "Moving up of the value chain"..( meaning more niche jobs which requires complex skill sets than manufacturing or coding)
2005: A Finnish couple that we met on the way back from India was actually living in India..speaking Hind and adopted an Indian soni!!
2007: A Finn that I was talking to is now in Bangalore working there. A colleague's friend also started work in Bangalore a few weeks back!!
Yes things are changing..albeit very slowly.. That doesnt mean that Tiwaz was wrong..Finns will Still require their service in Finnish even if they speak perfect English!!
and Foreigners will still get their legal papers in Finnish ( mebbe for another 10 years) and are still required to converse in Finnish if they want to deal with Finnish customers.
English will always be a Secondary Plus for most jobs..( and some will be a must)

[mCowboy]

Ok, here's something I've been thinking about for some time now. My prediction is a positive polarization of Finnish society. There will be roughly 2 groups of people; the people who create added value to Finland and the people who service them.

The first group is the people working in companies, which export. The money from the export comes back to Finland fueling the economy. As already seen, the labor intensive work is moving out of Finland, so Finland needs (and support) companies, which rely more on brain power than physical power. So companies need to specialize in hi-tech (in all fields, especially in forestry and metal industries), bio-sciences, IT, consulting and R&D. Finland needs to sell information, concepts, services and expertise instead of products. For example, there's no reason why paper companies shouldn't stay here developing the industry, when the actual products are manufactured in low-cost labor countries, especially Finland has high level education and educated people available for pretty much the lowest cost in the Western Europa and North America.

The second group is providing services to the first group. Social & health services, EMS, stores, services & food industry etc. The work they do does not bring more money to Finland, but it will support the first group whose work does. Because of this very reason, the salary on those fields is and will not be competitive with the first group. It's also most likely that increasing number of this work will be done by immigrants.

That's the only way Finland can survive in this change created by the globalization.

[raamv]

Good point Mcowboy!! again!! but I do tend to support that the second group have salaries on par so that the system can be more balanced..regardless of whether immigrants can perform those jobs or not!! and moreover, if they are high(competitive) there is a higher chance of immigrant inflow!

[Mölkky-Fan]

But that does not mean that I would like to be served in English.

Totally agree with this. I mean the Finnish system is getting there.. It has taken our Southern Neighbors only 20 years to realize that their integration program really works..
so it ll take mebbe 10-20 for this to work here...
( One day at Stockholm will prove it to you..Listen to an Asian looking or African looking person when they start to speak..: Perfect Swedish flows outta their veins)..

Sorry, but this is not a good arguement. Many Asian and African looking people are Swedish at birth or from childhood... and therefore learn Swedish at school... just because they look different does not mean they are recent immigrants. I know here in Finland we do not have so many of these situations, but this will change over the generations.

[raamv]

But that does not mean that I would like to be served in English.

Totally agree with this. I mean the Finnish system is getting there.. It has taken our Southern Neighbors only 20 years to realize that their integration program really works..
so it ll take mebbe 10-20 for this to work here...
( One day at Stockholm will prove it to you..Listen to an Asian looking or African looking person when they start to speak..: Perfect Swedish flows outta their veins)..

Sorry, but this is not a good arguement. Many Asian and African looking people are Swedish at birth or from childhood... and therefore learn Swedish at school... just because they look different does not mean they are recent immigrants. I know here in Finland we do not have so many of these situations, but this will change over the generations.

precisely the point of
2) If not for their parents being Integrated, the children will still be in Ghettos and not considered as "Swedish" instead!!
1) Integration programs taking a couple of generations and

[Tiwaz]

You both miss the point that Cory made very well. English is the language in many companies such as the company for which I work. The offical language was already English even before I arrived ... even though there were zero foreigners working there... only Finns. For a good while there was me and 180 Finns. But like many Finnish companies, lots of their business is from abroad, and folk from abroad tend not to speak Finnish.

And am yet to walk into company where english is official office language. Big companies are mainly english speaking, yes. But they have these few foreign guys and resources to waste.

Mid to small sized businesses, ones that actually do majority of employment, are predominately finnish speaking in office. Handling foreign contacts is not that bad as, like many have noted, higher educated finns tend to deal relatively well in english.

So why would this small to medium sized company want to hire foreigner who would require all paperwork reworked to english? For international contacts? Hire well educated finn...

If you can't find one, settle for something less perhaps.

And in turn, I think you will live to see the day when many of those jobs which require fluency in the Finnish language have been offshored to Romania, India and China. The jobs which are most secure are the ones with an international aspect = English language.

Exports are what brings home the bacon, the future of Finland lies in selling expertise and technology to the rest of the world. Domestic service industries are not going to help the Finnish economy (0/10 to you know who).

The point is not about foreigners with basic Finnish language skills providing counter service in English in Stockmann, it's the perception that some Finnish companies and the recruitment process in Finland are perhaps a little behind the times. Anecdotal evidence that even with the right skill-set, and when there is an obvious shortage of skilled workers, it is notoriously hard to get an in with a Finnish company. This will change. This is changing. But slowly.

Except, finnish school system is rather excellent at producing highly educated finns as well. Yes, there is room for highly educated foreigners. But that does not mean they have free ride without a problem, unless they happen to be lucky enough to hit situation and area which currently needs desperately workers....

They have to compete with finns, who have locally accepted education, who speak language, who speak other languages as well, who know how to behave. Finns are not incapable of training skilled specialists from finnish stock.

International aspect does not save immigrant, I work in smallish company which does a whole lot of foreign dealings. Guess how many immigrants we have...

0
Previous companies worked for (each working internationally) and number of foreigners in office....

0

Whole office speaks finnish, and when foreign customer comes people dealing with them switch to english.

And let's not forget that many people who write even in this forum are often asking for "any" job. Basically no education in niche business. Or come from client oriented business like restaurant/hotel business.

[shrecher]

All such groundless talk about "No Finnish language, no good job" could be easily disproved by my personal example. I'm living here almost 10 years and know less than 50 words in Finnish language. It doesn't prevent me to work and earn very competitive salary. I have no problems to communicate with people regardless of they nationality, race and language they speak. Finns are ease to switch to English, at least at Seutu region. The company size was never be a matter. I own part of my IT business and again quite successful. You might say IT is a "niche", well, any occupation is a "niche". You might say "your example is unique". Actually, it is not.

[sinikala]

Mid to small sized businesses, ones that actually do majority of employment, are predominately finnish speaking in office. Handling foreign contacts is not that bad as, like many have noted, higher educated finns tend to deal relatively well in english.

So why would this small to medium sized company want to hire foreigner who would require all paperwork reworked to english? For international contacts? Hire well educated finn...

If you can't find one, settle for something less perhaps.

I think we have a pretty good picture from the above of how you think, and how many Finnish companies operate. What we are trying to explain to you is that for Finland to be competitive in the future, the above needs to change, and is changing.

Your perception that a foreigner who does not speak Finnish is somehow "something less" is a blinkered view to put it mildly. Two of my foreign colleagues speak very little Finnish, both are recent arrivals in the company, one was recruited from abroad, one has been here longer than me but seems to speak little Finnish. They seem to be quite valued here.

That the office language is Finnish is not really relevant, it's not a great problem for a foreigner, at least I have never found a problem that I don't understand all of the conversations around me. To be honest, I don't care. I care only that I can do the job and that they pay me well for it.

Except, finnish school system is rather excellent at producing highly educated finns as well.

It produces some, but takes a long time to produce them... Don't believe everything you read about the educational system here, it really isn't all that it's made out to be, especially not at tertiary level.

Yes, there is room for highly educated foreigners. But that does not mean they have free ride without a problem, unless they happen to be lucky enough to hit situation and area which currently needs desperately workers....

Workers are needed across every section. Finland has a shortage of skilled labour. I'm not sure how you missed this?

They have to compete with finns, who have locally accepted education, who speak language, who speak other languages as well, who know how to behave. Finns are not incapable of training skilled specialists from finnish stock.

In many cases Finland seem unable to do just that. You have a relatively small tertiary education system, not covering all bases. How do you think I got my job? They were unable to find a local with the correct skills.

International aspect does not save immigrant, I work in smallish company which does a whole lot of foreign dealings. Guess how many immigrants we have...
0
Previous companies worked for (each working internationally) and number of foreigners in office....
0
Whole office speaks finnish, and when foreign customer comes people dealing with them switch to english.

If your colleagues share similar attitude to you, then to be honest, it's no great surprise that there were zero. You finally seem to be closing in on the point. Looking round your office there are no foreigners because nobody in your recruitment staff has employed one.

When I arrived there were no foreigners here either, for a couple of years I was the only one, now there are 4 foreigners here, all of different nationalities. Only one of us speaks Finnish well (it isn't me btw!).

Besides I don't know why I'm explaining this to you. It's not like you have a choice in the matter... Finland will go the way of the rest of the Nordic countries.

[Tiwaz]

Have you gentlemen ever thought that every time people have to translate papers for you into english, it is extra inefficiency/cost.

That is why immigrant is never on even playfield with native. Native forms baseline. You bring extra expenses, so unless you have something to counter those expenses with. You are not worth it.

It's life. Deal with it.

[antstar]

Sinikala, why bother, its obvious he has it backward thinking blinkers on, several people have explained but they do no take anything. Tiwaz for a start thinks he is supiorer, JUST becasue he speaks a language hard to learn which is not needed to live here. many many examples you and myself being two. and his comment "its life, deal with it" is aimed more at himself

[Hank W.]

Now you might have been a poet, but now we're both shackled to the oar as equals, but I can speak your language while you cannot speak mine, so if there is a question of whom is better, it surely isn't you.
G. Bengtsson - Röd Orm