Strict regulations and bureaucracy hamper work-based immigration from outside EU, reports Helsingin Sanomat.
Vietnamese Nguyen Dung, aged 28, is spray-painting boards for a bookcase at P. Rotola-Pukkila Oy, a company manufacturing furniture in the town of Kauhajoki in Ostrobothnia.
Nguyen Dung’s hourly rate is EUR 10, which means that by noon he has earned EUR 40, which equals the monthly earnings of a worker in Vietnam.
Another Vietnamese worker Hai Dang, aged 32, is feeding birch veneer into a glueing machine.
”You Vietnamese are hardworking people. The town of Kauhajoki would like you to stay here and bring even your families here”, said Antti Rantakokko, the Town Manager of Kauhajoki, when he addressed a 18-member group of Vietnamese men at the Kauhajoki Town Hall in October 2008.
The town of Kauhajoki and the local entrepreneurs decided to recruit Vietnamese workers, as labour force was not available in Finland.
”I advertised for spray painters in a local newspaper. I even promised to organise on-the-job training. No applications were received. Later on I managed to employ one Finn, but he did not like the job”, says Managing Director Mikko Rotola-Pukkila. He is well satisfied with the Vietnamese employees.
It seems now that Rantakokko’s wish for bringing the families of Vietnamese workers to Finland is not going to come true, as the minimum financial subsistence requirement based on the Finnish Aliens Act is too strict.
According to the law, Dung’s monthly wages are not high enough in order that he could provide for his wife and child in Finland.
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