“The result of the survey is not surprising, since there is a lot of discussions in Finland of deteriorating dependency ratios, about how we need more man-years in the next decade,” said STL Director Tero Lausala.
The association pointed out that the European refugee crisis and its management have overshadowed the debate on labour immigration.
“For the 300,000 immigrants living in Finland, employment opportunities must be improved. Currently, more than 15 per cent of the immigrants are unemployed, a huge difference from the native population,” Lausala said.
The survey was conducted in December by the online market research firm CINT.
There were more than one thousand respondents aged between 18 and 70 years, more than a fifth of whom believe that immigrants take jobs away from Finns.