Finland Times

Immigrants who came to Finland in the 2000s are much better in terms of employment than those who came in the mid-1990s, found a recent study by the Pellervo Economic Institute.

The difference in employment between immigrants who came in the mid-1990s and those in the mid-2000s is more than 20 percentage points.

According to the researchers, Finnish attitudes toward immigrants also have become more open.

One reason for the improvement in the immigrants’ employment situation is that more immigrants came to Finland specifically to find employment. Economic conditions have also affected employment: the recession in Finland in the mid-1990s seriously hampered employment opportunities.

The study looked at immigrant employment situation in Finland until 2013. The data is extensive: it includes 58,000 immigrants who came to Finland in 1995-1996, 2000-2001, and 2005-2006.

The data was gathered from the registers of the Finnish Centre for Pensions and Statistics Finland.

The survey shows that Estonians are the most employed immigrants, closely followed by those from western and southern Europe.

The least employed immigrants are from Somalia and the Middle East. A large part of them are refugees.

Women are employed less than men, as women more often move to Finland for familial reasons. In addition, many immigrant women spend longer periods of time as housewives compared to the Finnish women.