Need Salary advice - Engineer position in Helsinki

[Upphew]

Value of the network of people who don't have any work to do is insignificant.

Smells like a 18 hole negotiation or seminar in Ylläs?

[cors187]

Without a history , signing a lease agreement can be difficult, I had a secure contract,plus written and verbal from my business associate about writing the contract to 5 years, plus i had written and verbal financial guarantee from my friend(businesses cannot become a guarantor here), and still i was passed over many times by the official renting system.On the other side of the coin was renting through the network of friends and associates and that was where i found an apartment.

How is it possible to fly in,start work and rent an apartment , its a good idea to see what sort of support you can get from the network you would be coming into !

[starla]

Without a history , signing a lease agreement can be difficult, I had a secure contract,plus written and verbal from my business associate about writing the contract to 5 years, plus i had written and verbal financial guarantee from my friend(businesses cannot become a guarantor here), and still i was passed over many times by the official renting system.On the other side of the coin was renting through the network of friends and associates and that was where i found an apartment.

How is it possible to fly in,start work and rent an apartment , its a good idea to see what sort of support you can get from the network you would be coming into !

This is an excellent point. The company is quite small and they said that although they have some foreigners on board already, they have never relocated anyone before. So they would have to figure out how to make it all work.

[Adrian42]

Without a history , signing a lease agreement can be difficult, I had a secure contract,plus written and verbal from my business associate about writing the contract to 5 years, plus i had written and verbal financial guarantee from my friend(businesses cannot become a guarantor here), and still i was passed over many times by the official renting system.

There is no "official renting system" involved when doing a normal renting of an apartment.

Thre are people renting apartments directly, and people renting through an agent.

On the other side of the coin was renting through the network of friends and associates and that was where i found an apartment.

How is it possible to fly in,start work and rent an apartment

Worked fine for me: I did everything myself alone, and moved into my first apartment 10 days after I arrived in Helsinki (and didn't start searching before I arrived here).

It is not a surprise that when several people are interested in an apartment, then people who speak Finnish and have a Finnish credit history have an advantage. But finding anything is not a problem.

[cors187]

It is not a surprise that when several people are interested in an apartment, then people who speak Finnish and have a Finnish credit history have an advantage. But finding anything is not a problem.

Well , i think there is an official renting system and its through people who officially advertise, people in the industry etc etc. Through friends its just random chat, listening for opportunities .Through the friends network i had 2 apartments and a small family house offered to me , through the official renting system here(advertising, meeting real estates or land lords(whatever), i was rejected and often they would place me on some form of (let me get back to you by a certain date).Thats not how a person who has a job to do rolls.


One thing though to the OP, i spent a month in espoo staying with a stranger who (offered a room using this forum) and i have to tell you it was just at the right time as a work contract required me to start without delay.

Anyway Adrian ,although it seemed easy for you, i know its not easy, trying to house workers last season was and is always a complete nightmare.

[cors187]

I guess the official system a person is always chasing and trying to prove or validate.
Friends network is the opposite in many ways.

[Adrian42]

Anyway Adrian ,although it seemed easy for you, i know its not easy, trying to house workers last season was and is always a complete nightmare.

You didn't find any short-term housing for the workers through Forenom or Airbnb? That's hard to believe.

It's also worth mentioning that the short-term housing is a market completely different from long-term housing (and short-term housing is usually much more expensive for obvious reasons).

In any case, an intelligent person with a job searching for an apartment in Helsinki will find something.

[cors187]

I dont think intelligence is the major factor, history is.
The history of receiving money and paying rent.Right now i can enter the market and try for places that i was never going to get when i first came here, just because i can show 8 month renting history,salary payments and the other Finnish administrative details that seem to be needed by many people to verify who you are.A person doesn't have any of those when they fly in, all they have is a contract.

[Adrian42]

I dont think intelligence is the major factor, history is.
The history of receiving money and paying rent.Right now i can enter the market and try for places that i was never going to get when i first came here, just because i can show 8 month renting history,salary payments and the other Finnish administrative details that seem to be needed by many people to verify who you are.A person doesn't have any of those when they fly in, all they have is a contract.

There is no doubt that it becomes easier to get an apartment after having a Finnish credit history.

But that is just one factor.
Just like speaking Finnish increases your chances.
Or searching for an apartment in November is easier than searching for an apartment in August.

In any case, if you didn't find anything at all then you did something wrong. And considering that you even had problems finding accomodation for short-term workers where tons of offers exist by Forenom and Airbnb that sounds plausible.

[cors187]

Ummm, i dont make mistakes, i make money,thats my job here, so someone else handles the in and outs of my accommodation and workers accommodation.Its a Fin too with AAA ratings and yeah maybe mistakes can be made.
but ,thanks for thinking im a retard though,cheers

[starla]

Let me give you some numbers for that:

€ 4000-5000 before taxes are € 2500-3000 after taxes.

On rent plus electricity and internet you pay for a 2 room 40-50m² apartment relatively near to the center (e.g. Lauttasaari or Kallio) around € 1000 per month. Bigger is more expensive, further outside the city center is cheaper. € 1000-1500 is a realistic estimate what you'll pay (depending on where and how big).

€ 1000-1500 per month sounds realistic for two people for food and public transport and clothes, occassional visits to the cinema and cafes, a language course, etc.

That would leave € 0-1000 per month for optional luxury like e.g. holiday travel or a car.

If "decent lifestyle" is for you a normal middle-class life where you don't have to consider the costs before going to a cafe with a friend or to the cinema, but don't plan to spend insane amounts of money on weekly shopping sprees, then you should be quite fine with that salary in Helsinki.

And this is with just one salary, as soon as your husband also finds a job you will be in an even better financial situation.

I'm still struggling with the low salary vs. the high cost of living. I left a job in Los Angeles eight years ago, with a similarly low salary and high cost of living. While I was able to live a decent lifestyle and could afford to eat out and go on vacations, I was still stuck living like a quasi-college student in a 1bd apartment and not saving much money. And I was living alone then, no husband to support. I think if 4-5k euros/month is all they can offer, then it does not make any sense for me to move to Finland for this position. I would basically be reverting back to a lifestyle that I decided to improve upon years ago. I am better off to stay here, where engineers are paid a premium, and take a year off to travel if I want an adventure.

[cors187]

Look i wont fill your head with junk details, fins dont want to get out of bed for under 13 euros/hr.
15euros/hr is the 1st rung on the ladder above the water level(all costs included,rent etc etc)
Consider everything above 15 to be money that you can manipulate at will.
Husband =expense

[Cony]

Starla,
First if all, welcom to Finland.
Then... when you're creating your tax card either by phone or yourself on internet, it's more secure to estimate your income abit higher than your offered salary; lets say around 15%-20%.The reason is, incase of extra working hours, salary increase, bonus etc. you wont pay extra tax as additional rate. And if your income would not meet your estimation the extra payed rate will be refunded by the tax office to your bank account.
You can simply try this in the " tax percentage calculator " of vero.fi . Try different income and compare the tax rates.

Just to give you a rough idea about basic and additional tax rate, my husband estimated his income 60k for 2012. He got an offer to do night works so he had to apply for additional tax rate. The new tax rate is 60% which he pays since september. If he would estimate his innitial income around 100k, he would pay only 37.5% . It seems tax office will punish one who doesn't estimate correct, which is quit sad.

For your husband, you can check this link : http://www.academicpositions.fi/ , he might easyly find a tenure position with his phd since many universities offer professorship positions.

Good luck and all the best wishes for your new position,

[Rip]

Just to give you a rough idea about basic and additional tax rate, my husband estimated his income 60k for 2012. He got an offer to do night works so he had to apply for additional tax rate. The new tax rate is 60% which he pays since september. If he would estimate his innitial income around 100k, he would pay only 37.5% . It seems tax office will punish one who doesn't estimate correct, which is quit sad.

The final amount of taxes paid is not dependent on the initial withholding rate (excluding the quite insignificant effect of possible interest payment). The 60% rate only tries to compensate for the effect that he paid for the first eight months of the year far less taxes and than would have been the correct amount. In the end he pays the same as he would have paid with the initial tax rate set for 100k annual income.

[Adrian42]

I'm still struggling with the low salary vs. the high cost of living. I left a job in Los Angeles eight years ago, with a similarly low salary and high cost of living. While I was able to live a decent lifestyle and could afford to eat out and go on vacations, I was still stuck living like a quasi-college student in a 1bd apartment and not saving much money. And I was living alone then, no husband to support. I think if 4-5k euros/month is all they can offer, then it does not make any sense for me to move to Finland for this position. I would basically be reverting back to a lifestyle that I decided to improve upon years ago. I am better off to stay here, where engineers are paid a premium, and take a year off to travel if I want an adventure.

One thing you have to understand about Finland is that it is less "winner takes it all" than in the US and more "everyone is important and equality is a value".

Take education as an example:

Someone who moved from the US told recently "The kids in High School in Finland speak better English than the kids in US High Schools. Not a hard achievement, but still..."

Schools in Finland are everywhere at a pretty good level. College education is free. Finland lacks world leading universities like Harvard/Yale/Stanford/MIT/..., but the average level of college education is pretty high.

That gives even an average kid from a poor family a decent chance of a good college education.

This equality is also true for salaries, where the spread between low and high salaries is lower than in other countries. Even lower jobs pay € 8-10 per hour and there is not a working poor where one person needs 3 jobs or has to continue working after retirement just to pay his bills. But on the higher end salaries are lower.

You and your husband are with your education and job perspectives in the upper half of middle class, and you won't get a salary as high as in the US in Finland.

The salary you got offered is pretty decent for Finland. It would be OK as only income for a family with two kids, and considering that sooner or later your husband would also find a job you would be in a pretty good position.

If you two are interested in the adventure of moving to a country that is more different from the US than you might imagine, then this job sounds like a pretty good option for you.

But if you are interested in earning as much as possible, then Finland is not the right country for you.

Perhaps a country like Australia, that is not only language wise and culturally much nearer to the US than Finland, but where salaries are also pretty high, would then be a better destination for you.