Stonemasons in Finland

[Adrian42]

There are THOUSANDS of foreigners working in Finland without fluent Finnish.

And I am even one of them...

In some areas of IT you can find a job without speaking Finnish.
There are some jobs at universities etc.
And there are some rare odd jobs like teacher at the German school in Helsinki that do not require speaking Finnish.

The problem is that from these thousands of jobs, especially from the few ones not requiring special skills, not many are available since far too many people are competing for them.

But there are foreigners working in all sectors of the economy from primary sector (farming, forestry, mining etc) through knowledge-based jobs (education, technology etc) to the service sector (restaurants, healthcare, cleaning services etc),

There surely are many foreigners working in Finland (like half of the Helsinki bus drivers). But most of them are speaking Finnish, and it is not a surprise that the biggest group of foreigners in Finland are Estonians when you consider that 20% of all people in Estonia can speak Finnish.

Where in the healthcare sector can you get a job without speaking Finnish? Even all the Filipino and Spanish nurses that are frequently recruited to lower the shortage of nurses in Finland have to learn the language first before they can start their work.

Same goes for the non-IT "knowledge-based jobs" (and even for the majority of IT jobs): I know quite a few people in Finland with a masters degree who would get a job if only they had a very good knowledge of the Finnish language.

Speaking of "cleaning services", even there speaking Finnish is often a requirement (I remember the city of Helsinki recently lowered the level of Finnish required from cleaners working for the city).

[Upphew]

Speaking of "cleaning services", even there speaking Finnish is often a requirement (I remember the city of Helsinki recently lowered the level of Finnish required from cleaners working for the city).

Cleaning... so you might end up handling chemicals or machinery. Guess who's ass is on the line if the communicationally challenged worker maims him/herself? What languages are used in labeling?

I'm a ok if the cleaner can't chat with me. I wouldn't be ok if I had to learn languages just to get my job done as supervisor of cleaners. And it would bother me if the cleaner rushed in when I put the note to the door: "Täällä kuvataan heteropornoa klo 12-14, ethän tule silloin siivoamaan". But certainly I would rather hire a cleaner that lacks language skills than not hire a cleaner at all.

edit. btw, special stone works' people don't seem to chat much and they certainly don't work too fast

[cors187]

Just recently we have to deal with a main contractor company(12million year so its not a small company) and both the main guys didn't even try to speak English to me, the whole thing ,every detail of the work,logistic and communication will be in Finnish.I have to attach a FIN worker to myself for the duration.

Success is the ability to give everyone what they need without hassles.
To the OP, coming to a country like Finland where it looks good on paper, but the paper cannot show the hardness of the language, the difference in social mechanisms in business and not forgetting that everything is paper trail here(Finnish).
If for whatever reason you are here for then you need to complement yourself with FIN speaking business associates.
If your a machine worker type, find a seller type of associate.
Learning the margins between partnership details , making mistakes ,developing systems and every other detail is rewarding because you can take all that learning and apply it anywhere and anytime in the whole world.Your Finnish will be just a 1 bedroom apartment language in a big city!

You could be like me , i seem to be able to troubleshoot and develop a way to do stuff that's highly efficient so the budgets can be meet, maybe i am well above average on this , but languages , because FIN will be my third language i tried to do business in and i wont sugar coat the fact that i am well below average in terms of learning my second and 3rd language..lol , my 3rd language doesn't even exist and never will,hah

[Keiran]

Thank you all very much for your help. I'm checking up on all of your suggestions and it's all really helpful!