Finland to attract more migrant workers from Vietnam

Finland identified Brazil, India, Vietnam and Turkey as four special target countries to attract immigrants.

The Nordic country will send “talent advisors” to the four above countries, where partnerships will be created for recruitment in various sectors, said the Ministry of Economy Affairs and Employment of Finland (MEAE)’s Migration Director, Sonja Hammainen, at a press conference on November 30th.

According to MEAE, Finland aims to attract doubling the number of immigrants in the field of employment from now to 2030. In the health care sector, the number of foreign workers can contribute about 10% of human resources in Finland over the next 10 years.

The UN figures show that for every 100 employees in Finland, more than 39 people are over 65. With this ratio, Finland is only behind Japan in the level of population aging. It is expected that by 2030, the percentage of workers over 65 will account for 47.5% of the country’s population.

In order to achieve the goal of attracting 50,000 immigrants in Finland by 2030 and 250,000 by 2050, MEAE implemented the recruitment program named “Talent Boost Program” in order to attract experts and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley (USA) and from New Delhi (India). However, the results were not as expected. That programme only attracted immigrants from India. Up to now, 5,800 Indians have been licensed to reside in Finland under this program. MEAE acknowledged that Finland’s attractiveness for highly skilled international experts is relatively low so far.

Earlier, on October 26, Mr. Keijo Norvanto, Finish Ambassador to Vietnam had a meeting with Mr. Le Tan Dung, Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Vietnam in order to promote cooperation between the two countries in the field of vocational education. At the meeting, Mr. Keijo Norvanto shared that Finland is lacking in labor, especially in the fields of agriculture, health care… So, it is necessary for the Nordic nation to recruit foreign workers, including Vietnamese workers.

Sources: Xinhua, VnEconomy.

About Viet Nguyen

Viet Nguyen is a writer for ScandAsia specialized in Nordic-Vietnamese bilateral affairs.

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