The Finnish berry companies are looking to hire approximately 1,000 foreign berry pickers for this season, according to the Finnish news group Uutissuomalainen. This is a reaction to the government shutting down visas for foreign berry pickers from Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar for the 2024 harvest season.
The decision was made due to suspicions of exploitation and human trafficking. However, as the companies are moving closer to the harvest season, they are starting to be concerned. It is very possible that there will be a shortage in workers to pick the berries.
Now the companies are trying to attract the workers on work contracts instead of tourist visa. Birgitta Partanen, director of the industry group the Arctic Flavours Association (Arktiset Aromit), which represents the berry industry stated that there are still many issues that needs to be ironed out.
However, it shouldn’t be ignored that, according to the media Yle, Thai workers have in the past picked almost 80-90 percent of the wild berry crop in Finland.
Source: Yle
The question is how many of the previous years’ Thai workers actually felt “exploited”, and how many saw an opportunity to moan for the low income, due to their OWN lazyness and bad skills of planning their lives economically.
The issue started with some berry-pickers complaining about low quality accommodation, but how low is the quality compared to their own home.
It is easy to understand that they hear stories how some distant relative went to Scandinavia, and according to his/her stories, made gazillions of money! “Easy money, trillions and billions, just walking a bit in the forest.”
So that story builds up, and the new generation Z, that are used to play with mobile-phones, then see that berry-picking as an easy way to richness.
They do not count the cost of travelling, and do not understand that berry-picking is HARD work, that they are not used to in the world of today. It is REAL WORK. (The same Thai financial supriority comes into life in taxi-applications. An average driver is NOT capalble in calculating all the costs of the vehicle, and the only one really making many is the application; not the drivers.)
Then one finds mold in a corner, and someone else tells there is an opportunity to claim compenstations. And that same herd then tries that opportunity.
Herd-dumbness in purest.
Well, this year they can only blame themselves.
That is called “evolution”…