Persons entering Finland for work generally find it easier to obtain short-term three-month work permits if the authorities deem them to be professionals or specialists. According to the engineers’ union, the current definition is too loose and threatens to take jobs away from Finns.
For many years Finnish authorities have tried to tempt top notch talent from other countries by cutting through the red tape required to get a work permit.
But following mass retrenchments by Finnish phone maker and top employer Nokia as well as growing unemployment in the IT sector, engineers now want these rules tightened.
“Our system is making it easy for Finnish jobs to migrate overseas,” said Ismo Kokko of the Union of Professional Engineers.
Tata job cut talks almost at an end
Engineer representatives are particularly irked by the fate of nearly 600 workers outsourced by Nokia to the Indian IT consulting firm Tata Consulting Services TCS.
The ex-Nokians only managed to work with the Indian company for two months, before their new employer announced it was slashing close to 300 jobs in Finland.
The Union suspects that the lighter work permit procedure could accelerate the migration of jobs away from Finns and Finland as foreign experts get official permission to sharpen their expertise for Indian employers during what will essentially turn out to be study trips in Helsinki.
“The criteria should be tougher. The permit process should focus more on whether or not the people who come here have the kind of expertise that can already be found locally,” Kokko stressed.
TCS is expected to wrap up talks aimed at cutting 280 jobs in the next few days. The engineers’ union says it is anxiously waiting to see how many ex-Nokians will be among those put on the bread line.
