Is it possible to get a job in Espoo area w/o knowin Finnish

raysky · Post by **raysky** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 7:38 pm

Hi I am getting an offer to a job in Espoo Leppavaara,

My wife currently works in my home country,
both of us speak fluent English but not any Nordic languages.

Just wondering would it be extremely difficult for my wife to find a job in Espoo area without needing to pick up the local language?

Her background is IT & Computer Science, but she has worked as a Controlling Exectutive in the Finance field for years for a medical German company in my home country known as BBraun.

She specializes in building Excel Macro scripts to pull data and generate reports for the MDs and CFOs to use for their presentations.

Not sure if we can survive with solely my income in Finland... would a non working spouse be entitled for allowances from Kela?

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JK_Ironak · Post by **JK_Ironak** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 8:21 pm

Don't exclude Helsinki, Vantaa and rest of the capital region for job search - I live in Helsinki and it takes me 25 minutes to get to my job in Espoo. Read through the forum on general advice - there is a ton of threads on this topic. If your wife needs local language(if it's not English?) for her current job, then she'll probably need Finnish for a similar job here. However, check out this job search for possible jobs: link . Change the keyword but leave area as Uusimaa. It should give you a rough idea on job prospects.

If you get at least 2.5 k eur (gross) per month, you can live just fine as a couple, but it's not enough if you want to save for the future.

I'm not sure from the tone of your text, but it seems you are trying to avoid learning local language at all? That's just silly. One should always give some effort to learn the local language, but it's good to get a job independent of that.
PS. You have a lot of mistakes there for saying you are a fluent in English

betelgeuse · Post by **betelgeuse** » Sun Apr 10, 2016 11:53 pm

raysky wrote: Not sure if we can survive with solely my income in Finland... would a non working spouse be entitled for allowances from Kela?

If your job is permanent, then yes. For fixed contracts it depends on the length.

raysky · Post by **raysky** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 5:11 am

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback,
Ofcoz, I don't intend to not learn the local language at all, but I am just trying to check if there are any jobs that may not require that as a minimum entry criteria.

Jobs in my home country indeed do not really need you to be able to speak the local language here. Hence there are plenty of expats here who gets really good pay by just knowing English.

Every country is different ofcoz, thus I am trying to find out how important it is to know Finnish before one can land a secure job there.

About fluency in English, yea English is not my mother tongue, but I guess by fluent, I actually meant adequate pronunciation to converse very well for the job.
We're not in education line or English literature line of professionals thus I was assuming simple grammatical errors would still be comprehensible.

Thanks for all the feedback though

raysky · Post by **raysky** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 5:24 am

betelgeuse wrote:
raysky wrote: Not sure if we can survive with solely my income in Finland... would a non working spouse be entitled for allowances from Kela?
If your job is permanent, then yes. For fixed contracts it depends on the length.

Thanks, it is a permanent one...by any chance at all, do you happen to know roughly how much would the allowance be?

rinso · Post by **rinso** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 7:04 am

would a non working spouse be entitled for allowances from Kela?

If you have a job with a normal salary your wife will get nothing.
There are some possibilities but they involve children or study. And those allowances often don't cover the real costs.

betelgeuse · Post by **betelgeuse** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 10:15 am

rinso wrote:
would a non working spouse be entitled for allowances from Kela?
If you have a job with a normal salary your wife will get nothing.
There are some possibilities but they involve children or study. And those allowances often don't cover the real costs.

Unemployment benefits are also available at least temporarily. For non EU citizens there can be some hickups for renewing residence permits if continuously relying on benefits.

http://www.te-services.fi/te/en/jobseek ... index.html

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 10:41 am

Well, firstly you have the income requirement to bring in the spouse and kids- so they won't be on benefits.

betelgeuse · Post by **betelgeuse** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 11:11 am

Pursuivant wrote:Well, firstly you have the income requirement to bring in the spouse and kids- so they won't be on benefits.

This is the fun part about the rules. You have to be over the income limit to satisfy the Aliens Act and not be in need of benefits but once in the country you are eligible (excluding income support that is explicitly listed as a cause to revoke a permit).

raysky · Post by **raysky** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 1:05 pm

rinso wrote:
would a non working spouse be entitled for allowances from Kela?
If you have a job with a normal salary your wife will get nothing.
There are some possibilities but they involve children or study. And those allowances often don't cover the real costs.

Hi, what do you mean by the allowances often don't cover the real costs? Do you mean the cost of raising children and the study fees? I thought education and childcare is free in Finland? Or you actually have to pay and then claim back as allowances?
Are there additional fees involve for studies? I mean cost of raising children I can perhaps understand of-cos there are additional cost raising children on top of their education and childcare fees. But how can allowance for study not cover the real costs?

rinso · Post by **rinso** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 3:33 pm

But how can allowance for study not cover the real costs?

Think of books, equipment, subscriptions, meals, travel, memberships and so on.
The allowance is minimal.

raysky · Post by **raysky** » Mon Apr 11, 2016 5:58 pm

rinso wrote:
But how can allowance for study not cover the real costs?
Think of books, equipment, subscriptions, meals, travel, memberships and so on.
The allowance is minimal.

ah....I see thanks, clear now

raysky · Post by **raysky** » Sun Apr 17, 2016 5:40 pm

roger_roger wrote: If the kids are physically very active and have lots of hobbies, Swimming pool membership, Jumba membership, Skateboard, ice skating, hockey gears, bicycle and helmet, football gears, skii gears, add some more by yourself what your kids like to do and then you get the idea about expenses for raising the kids.

wait you mean those membership are not free and incur additonal fees?
this is news to me so this means education is not completely free in finland but only the basic syllabus designed by the education ministry is?

wolf80 · Post by **wolf80** » Sun Apr 17, 2016 6:14 pm

raysky wrote:
roger_roger wrote: If the kids are physically very active and have lots of hobbies, Swimming pool membership, Jumba membership, Skateboard, ice skating, hockey gears, bicycle and helmet, football gears, skii gears, add some more by yourself what your kids like to do and then you get the idea about expenses for raising the kids.
wait you mean those membership are not free and incur additonal fees?
this is news to me so this means education is not completely free in finland but only the basic syllabus designed by the education ministry is?

He is not talking about school, but membership and entrance fees for hobbies the children have. If your child is playing table tennis, ice-hockey, soccer or whatever you normally have to pay a membership fee for the club, and of course for all the equipment your child needs. And if it's a competitive sport also for travel arrangements to tournaments.

raysky · Post by **raysky** » Sun Apr 17, 2016 6:28 pm

wolf80 wrote:
He is not talking about school, but membership and entrance fees for hobbies the children have. If your child is playing table tennis, ice-hockey, soccer or whatever you normally have to pay a membership fee for the club, and of course for all the equipment your child needs. And if it's a competitive sport also for travel arrangements to tournaments.

Do you happen to know how much are the memberships roughly per month?
I'm not much of a sports person myself, but not sure about my kids in future. In my home country, during my time, we don't play much sports other than schooling time under a subject called "physical education".
So I had not much idea about those sports membership stuffs, and how much the equipment actually cost.
I had to even learn swimming all by myself with some guidance from a close friend who already knows how to swim.
I can't even ride a bike...that's how much of an in-door person I am....occasionally play some futsal as the goalkeeper..and swim around in my own apartment's common swimming pool....hahaha rarely hit the gym like perhaps once per annum...

Are there public swimming pools in Finland? Is entrance fee required?

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