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Työikäisten määrä romahtamassa pääkaupunkiseudulla
Julkaistu: 16.6.2007 21:00

Hanna Kaarto

Sairaanhoitaja Lisa Kivelän perjantain työvuoro Jorvin sairaalassa loppui kello kolme iltapäivällä, mutta sairaanhoitajapulan takia hän joutuu jäämään töihin iltakahdeksaan.

Pääkaupunkiseudun työvoimapula pahenee nopeasti lähivuosina, kun kantasuomalaisten työikäisten määrä alkaa vuonna 2010 vähentyä eläkeaallon myötä.

Vuonna 2025 pääkaupunkiseudun työikäisistä arvioidaan 17 prosentin olevan taustaltaan maahanmuuttajia.

Käytännössä maahanmuuttajat vastaavat jo parin vuoden päästä yksin työikäisen väestön kasvusta pääkaupunkiseudulla, arvioidaan alueen väestöä ja palvelutarvetta kartoittaneessa selvityksessä.

Muualta tulevat eivät kuitenkaan pelasta pääkaupunkiseutua työvoimapulalta, sillä heidän määränsä ei korvaa eläkkeelle lähtijöiden määrää lähellekään.

Pelkkiin julkisen sektorin töihin tarvittaisiin vuonna 2010 yhtä paljon uusia työntekijöitä kuin samana vuonna työmarkkinoille tulevassa ikäluokassa on pääkaupunkiseudulla ihmisiä, sanoo Espoon kaupunginjohtaja Marketta Kokkonen.

Jo nyt joistakin ammattiryhmistä, kuten sairaanhoitajista, on huutava pula.

Helsingissä tulee tarvetta ainakin lääkäreistä ja hammaslääkäreistä. Espoossa kaupungin puutelistalla ovat jo nyt sairaanhoitajat, sosiaalityöntekijät ja lastentarhanopettajat, erityisesti ruotsinkieliset. Vantaalla jää eläkkeelle erityisen paljon opettajia ja myös teknisen toimen työntekijöitä.

Helsingin kaupunki on juuri aloittanut Pietarissa pilottiprojektin, jossa siivous- ja huoltohenkilöstöä sekä muun muassa kouluisäntiä koulutetaan kaupungin tarpeisiin. Heidän on määrä aloittaa työt Helsingissä syyskuun alussa.

Osastopäällikkö Eija Hanni Helsingin henkilöstökeskuksesta kertoo, että nämä 29 pietarilaista saavat kahden vuoden oppisopimuskoulutuksen, jonka jälkeen he toivottavasti työllistyvät pysyvästi Helsingin kaupungille.

Maahanmuuttajien koulutusta lähtömaassa kaupungin töihin aiotaan laajentaa muillekin aloille.

Työttömiä Helsingin kaupungilla on oppisopimuskoulutuksessa tällä hetkellä kolmisensataa.

Rekrytointikoulutuksessa aloitti tänä vuonna parisataa. He ovat esimerkiksi maahanmuuttajia, jotka tarvitsevat täydentävää koulutusta Suomen oloja varten.

Lisäksi pääkaupunkiseudun kunnista on käyty houkuttelemassa suomalaisia sairaanhoitajia paluumuuttajiksi Norjasta, Ruotsista ja Britanniasta.

Kaupunkien henkilöstöasioista vastaavat muistuttavat, että ratkaiseva vaikutus työvoimapulan torjuntaan on koulutuspaikkojen määrillä.

Myös työurien pidentäminen ja asuntopolitiikka ovat keskeisessä asemassa työvoiman saannin turvaamisessa.

Minister Pledges Rapid Changes to Immigration Laws
Published 05.07.2007, 09.07 (updated 05.07.2007, 09.14)

The government is worried about a labour shortage -- and Finland's first Migration Minister wants quick legislative changes to make the country more welcoming to foreigners. She says that the Aliens' Act will be updated in bits and pieces, as a complete overhaul would take too long.

Finland badly needs more workers like Yusuf Kart, a Kurdish immigrant who runs a restaurant at Helsinki's Caisa international cultural centre. He has lived in Finland for 10 years, but says he still does not really feel at home. Kart applied for Finnish citizenship two years ago, but has not gotten any response from the authorities.

"You don't feel welcome, that's the problem. And why not? I'm working, I have my business here and my family here," he says.

The government now plans to revise many parts of the Aliens' Act in an effort to make Finland more attractive to immigrants and simplify bureaucracy.

No Time to Waste

Minister of Migration Astrid Thors says parts of the law must be changed to speed up immigration. However it will be done piecemeal, as a rewrite of the whole act would take years -- time that Finland simply cannot afford to waste.

First of all, immigration-related issues are now being centralised under one new ministry, to be led by Thors.

Kart is too busy to spend much time thinking about administrative overhauls. He just wants to be treated equally by the authorities.

"If they treat me differently than you, it gives me a bad feeling, as if I'm a second-class or third-class citizen. It doesn't feel nice," he says.

Thors: Suomen purettava byrokratiaa maahanmuuton tieltä

Suomen on purettava työperäisen maahanmuuton esteitä, sanoo maahanmuutto- ja eurooppaministeri Astrid Thors (r).

"Ennen kaikkea hallitus pyrkii hyvään työllistämispolitiikkaan kotimaassa, mutta jo nyt on aloja, joille työvoimaa on erittäin vaikea saada omasta takaa", Thors toteaa STT:n haastattelussa.

Thors painottaa, että työvoiman liikkuvuuden vapauttaminen EU:n sisällä on osoittautunut hyvin toimivaksi.

Seuraavaksi Suomen olisi syytä purkaa muista maista tulevien työlupiin ja viisumeihin liittyvää byrokratiaa. Thors pitää erityisen kankeana nykyistä saatavuusharkintamenettelyä, jossa työluvan myöntämistä edeltää viranomaisarviointi siitä, onko hakijan alalla tarvetta työvoimalle.

Thorsin mukaan Suomeen on voitava tulla etukäteen hankitun työn sijaan myös etsimään työtä. Ratkaisuksi hän tarjoaa niin sanottua työnhakuviisumia.

EK: Ulkomaista työvoimaa vaikea saada

3.8. 13:25 Työnantajat ottavat yhä enemmän ulkomaalaisia työntekijöitä palkkalistoilleen. Hidas työlupakäytäntö vaikeuttaa kuitenkin ulkomaisen työvoiman saantia kolmansista maista, kuten Venäjältä.

– Diili, joka esimerkiksi rakennusprojektissa on sovittu, karkaa jo käsistä ennen kuin henkilö pääsee Suomeen, Elinkeinoelämän keskusliiton työmarkkina-asiantuntija Riitta Wärn harmitteli.

Wärn kertoo saavansa jatkuvasti yhteydenottoja lupamenettelyn venymisestä huolestuneilta yrittäjiltä. Lupaprosessi kestää jopa kuukausia.

Maahanmuutto- ja eurooppaministeri Astrid Thorsin mielestä nykyistä työlupamenettelyä on syytä vauhdittaa. Thors luopuisi muun muassa ulkomaisen työvoiman saatavuusharkinnasta, jossa työluvan myöntämistä edeltää hakijan alan työvoimatarpeen arviointi.

– Siinä on paljon byrokratiaa suhteessa suojeluun, mitä sitä kautta voidaan antaa.

Hallitus haluaa lisätä työperäistä maahanmuuttoa Suomeen. Lisää väkeä ja osaamispohjaa kaivataan etenkin EU:n ulkopuolisista maista.

Most Finns Support More Immigrant Workers
Published 19.08.2007, 16.39

The majority of Finns approve of foreigners moving to Finland to live and work. According to a survey by the Sunday supplement of the Väli-Suomen newspapers, only two percent of Finns responded negatively to immigrants moving to Finland from any country.

Immigrants from Sweden, the UK, Germany ) and the US were considered the most welcome. Meanwhile, those with roots in Somalia or Arabic countries were thought to be the least desirable.

Respondents between the ages of 25 and 34 were the most enthusiastic about immigrants. However those over 65 years of age were more likely to view immigration to Finland negatively. People living in the regions of Uusimaa and Eastern Finland were also more likely to support immigration than those living in other areas.

Pollster TNS Gallup interviewed 1,000 Finns in the poll.

Employers' Group Wants More Immigrants

Leif Fagernäs, Director General of the Confederation of Finnish Industries, is calling for the establishment of offices abroad for the recruitment of foreign labour to Finland. According to Fagernäs, Finland's existing labour pool is insufficient for improving or even sustaining the present level of general well-being in Finland.

In a newspaper interview, Fagernäs also took issue with reservations expressed by Foreign Trade and Development Minister Paavo Väyrynen toward increased immigration.

Last week Väyrynen said in an online newspaper that jobs for which workers cannot be found in Finland, should be transferred abroad.

Fagernäs feels that Finland should make efforts to attract foreign labour to this country. Canada has hundreds of recruitment offices around the world, and even Denmark is better prepared than Finland.

He notes that a report by a working group headed by provincial governor Rauno Saari proposed in 2005 that recruitment offices should be set up in countries such as Russia, Ukraine, China and India. He adds that attracting foreign labour to Finland will require special efforts, because factors such as the cold climate and the difficult language.

Fagernäs wants rapid political decisions; he sees the situation as urgent, because the ageing of the population is hitting Finland harder than any other European country, with the exception of Italy. As more members of the post-war baby boom generation retire, Fagernäs calculates that Finland will need thousands of new employees a year. Fagernäs says that some companies are already unable to accept new orders because of a shortage of labour.

Eldoradobaby schrieb am 26.11.2007 11:02
Anmerkung:
Ich frage mich, ob die Politiker wirklich die Realität wissen. Wer kann denn ohne Finnisch hier Arbeit finden? Ich meine, Glücksgriffe mal ausgenommen. Die meisten Jobs bei denen man kein Finnisch braucht sind auf Führungslevel. Und innerhalb von 6 Monaten Finnisch zu lernen und Arbeit finden ist doch utopisch... Naja, vielleicht habe ich auch etwas nicht genau verstanden. ?(

Asenteet estävät maahanmuuttajien työllistymisen
29.11.2007 07:22
(MTV3-Marjaana Toivakainen)

Voimistuvasta työvoimapulasta huolimatta maahanmuuttajat eivät löydä paikkaansa suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa.

Maahanmuuttajilla on yhä vaikeuksia työllistyä Suomessa. Jopa Suomessa koulutuksen saaneet maahanmuuttajat jäävät usein ilman työpaikkaa.

- Tässä on kansalaisryhmien välillä suuriakin eroja - esimerkiksi virolaisilla ei ole vaikeuksia työllistyä, mutta kauempaa tulevilla on, kertoo maahanmuutto- ja eurooppaministeri Astrid Thors.

Thorsin mielestä ongelmat johtuvat suurimmaksi osin työnantajien asenteista. Hän peräänkuuluttaakin arjen esimerkkejä maahanmuuttajien hyväksymisestä.

- Viranomaisten yhteistyö on tärkeää, mutta se ei riitä. Tarvitaan esimerkkejä, kuten nyt presidentti Tarja Halonen kutsui itsenäisyyspäivän vastaanotolle maahanmuuttajia, se on hyvä esimerkki, Thors jatkaa.

Maahanmuuttajien ongelmaksi katsotaan usein kielitaidon puute - mutta myös lukutaidon. Suomeen muuttaa vuosittain noin 500 lukutaidotonta ihmistä. Heille on opetushallituksessa räätälöity oma opetussuunnitelma, mutta se ei ole vielä löytänyt kohderyhmäänsä.

- Emme löydä niitä, he eivät jää haaveihimme, Thors miettii.

Astrid Thors toivoo maahanmuuttajien löytävän oman paikkansa suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa. Pelkona on kuitenkin myös työmarkkinoiden jakautuminen - on töitä, joita tekevät suomalaiset ja sitten on töitä, joita tekevät ulkomaalaiset.

Everyone who wants to go to Finland, raise your hands
Plans underway to bring tens of thousands of Filipinos to work in Finland
By Sami Sillanpää

The family of Circe Brillantes were happy in their wooden house, until termites ate so much of the structure that it was no longer safe to live in. They could not afford a new one: houses cannot be built on the income of a family of rice farmers.
Thank God, as this Catholic family says, that Circe has a nursing degree, and was able to get work in Saudi Arabia.
Circe went to the Middle East, worked hard in a hospital, and sent money to her parents. The walls of a new house in their home village near the city of Iloilo began to rise up.
Later Circe went to Kuwait for two years. With the money she earned there, the new house became a home. Now the family of six has a solid house built of stone, which the termites cannot hurt.
"This house still is a bit incomplete", Circe says on the porch of her home, which is pleasantly shaded from the tropical sun by a coconut palm. The polite, 34-year-old woman speaks beautiful English. Her father, a farmer, manages better in the local Ilongo language. Mother Erlinda brings in bananas picked from their own tree.
The walls of the home are still concrete grey, and the kitchen floor lacks tiles. The money that Circe earned in the Arab countries is not enough for that - especially since their aunt's illness got worse. But now the family again has hope of getting the home back into shape. Circe has a job waiting for her, where she can earn ten times as much as she could as a nurse in Iloilo.

Her visa application was approved this week. In a couple of months Circe begins work as a practical nurse in Finland.
"Do you have bananas in Finland?" Circe asks. "Oh, imported."
That is how the world economy works. Food, raw materials, and people have to be brought in from far away.

People in Iloilo laugh a great deal. The Filipinos have a reputation as a nation of warmhearted people, who are plagued by corruption, poverty, and crime.
On the outskirts of Iloilo, sheds have been cobbled together out of sheet metal and cardboard. In the centre of this city of half a million people, there are a couple of department stores and a number of pawn shops.
Along Iznart Street there is a bright, orange office building, which is guarded, in the local fashion, by two men carrying shotguns.
The office on the sixth floor offers a way to get to Finland.
The tables in the ample office of Filscandia Manpower Recruitment Services are decorated with Finnish flags. Filscandia operates together with the Finnish Opteam.
The business of Opteam is to arrange employment abroad. It has brought hundreds of metal workers from Poland and Slovakia to Finland. The welders and lathe operators that it recruited are building Finland's sixth nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto.

"Finland's own labour resources are not sufficient to fill all of the open jobs. Statistics show this. In many fields there is already an acute shortage of labour", says Mika Eskola, deputy CEO of Opteam.
This is a business for Opteam, but Eskola likes to say that he is "saving Finland", in the ten years to come, more than 700,000 Finns are retiring. According to Eskola, the promotion of "work-based immigration" is the only way to keep the country working. Recruitment of labour from Iloilo began about three months ago. Now the aim is to bring about 100 practical nurses to work with Esperi Care, which offers elderly care services.
Opteam is also recruiting cleaners, welders, and restaurant workers. "The goal is to build a significant network in the Philippines, which Finnish businesses can benefit from. By 2015 the aim is to bring tens of thousands of educated people to Finland." It is quite a task. No such migrations have been seen in recent Finnish history.

Fortune seeking has always motivated people. Finns have emigrated to America to work in forests, and to Sweden to build Volvos. Now people are moving to China to manage factories.
The Philippines was was established on the basis of migration, and it is still living from it. The country got its name according to Spain's Prince Phillip. About 500 years of Spanish rule were followed by 50 years as a colony of the Untied States.
During independence, which began in 1946, there was no end to instability, both economic, and political. This week a group of soldiers in Manila tried to stage a coup - yet again. Consequently, many Filipinos have a dream of getting out.

There are Filipinos working as household servants in Hong Kong, as construction workers in Chicago, as mercenaries in Iraq. A large proportion of the world's seamen are from the Philippines.
All in all, a dizzying nine million of the less than 90 million people who live in the Philippines work abroad. Some go for a year, others permanently.
There is a special abbreviation for migrant workers: OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker", and the sector is administered by two government offices.
"The money sent home by people working abroad is very important for the country's economy", says James Mendiola, who runs an office in Iloilo that helps would-be migrant workers.
A row of clocks on the wall of the office shows the time in various time zones, from Tokyo, to Riyadh, and to Sao Paulo. There are Filipinos all over the world. Last year 15 billion dollars worth of immigrants' pay money flowed into the Philippines, which is about five times more than the amount deriving from foreign investments made in the country.
Opteam chose Iloilo as its home base, because its contact person, Gideon Regaldo, a doctor who worked for a long time in Finland, knew the Buaron family, which now runs the recruitment company in Iloilo.

Of the approximately ten employees in the company, none have ever been to Finland. But members of the Buaron family have been immigrants. Raul, the brother of the director of the company, worked for years on a pleasure boat in Monaco, owned by Finnish Formula 1 legend Keke Rosberg.
"His son Nico is now driving Formula 1. It was a nice family. We often took the boat to Corsica and Sardinia", Raul recalls.
The morning in Iloilo is pleasantly warm. A group of students on the lawn of the university are playing softball. A sign on the door of the main building makes a polite request: Please leave your guns in the cloakroom.
The nursing school which operates as part of the Central Philippines University is one of Iloilo's more than ten educational institutions in health care in the city. Nursing is the most popular field in the university.
It has been noticed in the Philippines, that people in rich countries no longer care for each other. There is a shortage of nurses giving care to the sick, the elderly, and the disabled in the ageing industrialised countries from Australia to Germany.
Therefore, Iloilo churns out nurses for the whole world. Where the students end up depends on "the world market situation", as deputy dean Carolyn Yoro expresses the matter.
"It used to be that students wanted to become nurses, so they could help people. Now the students want to be nurses so they can go abroad", Yoro says.
It takes four years to learn nursing. The language of instruction is English, which is one of the official languages of the Philippines, and a language of instruction from elementary school.
The education includes practice at a hospital operating in connection with the university. The nurses help in the birth of babies, assist in surgery, and deal with emergencies in intensive care. The final exam meets the standards of the United States.
"Our equipment may not be as fancy as in rich countries, but in professional skills, our graduates are competitive globally", Yoro says.

Who wouldn't want to hire Maureen Parra, a cheerful woman of 32 from Iloilo, who is sharp and funny and speaks five languages, from Cebuano to Spanish. She has two degrees, as a physical therapist and as a nurse.
Maureen has applications to the United States, Australia, and Finland.
"There are many who apply to the Untied States and Australia. Sometimes it takes more than a year to get a reply. Finland is a new country, and one might get there more quickly", Maureen says.
There are recruitment offices in Iloilo to several countries. There are some dishonest ones among them. Even many of the honest firms charge a few months' wages in fees.
Opteam does not charge the applicants any fees. The company says that it is a matter of principle. Opteam earns its money by billing its Finnish customers - that is, the companies where those who are recruited go to work.
"I hope that Finland will become a new opportunity for us, a new place where the people of Iloilo can go to work", says Deputy Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog.
Thousands of nurses graduate at our schools every year. We have many people available."
Iloilo trains as many nurses in a year as all of Finland does.

The Opteam office has not yet advertised Finland very much. The word has nevertheless spread in the hospitals and schools. Well over 100 applications have come - some from other cities. One evening, on Iloilo's short bar street a local young man, going by the name of Red, says "I have thought about applying to go to Finland as a cleaner.
If the visions that Opteam and its partners have for the Philippines are implemented, there will be a completely new kind of migration to Finland - or then not. The office run by Filipinos has its hands full of work. Applicants need to be interviewed, and certificates need to be verified. Someone is always trying to cheat.
The small Finnish Embassy in Manila could not handle the thousands of visa applications with its present staff.
The big question is, what Finland wants. Many politicians speak in favour of work-based immigration, while others are strongly against it. Labour unions have their own worries. In the whole of the EU there is a need for new labour, but at the same time, it is said that quotas are needed for the use of immigrant labour.
They are big issues that Circe Brillantes has not had time to think about. Her everyday life goes into helping her sick aunt. Sitting on the sofa of the unfinished home, the aunt looks frail. Her kidney ailment requires dialysis treatment in a hospital every week.
Treating the aunt is so expensive for the family, that Circe's pay, even in Iloilo's best hospital, would not be enough to cover it. She also has a debt of honour to pay. Without her aunt's financial support, Circe would not have been able to study to be a nurse. Nearly 200,000 pesos, or the wages of many years, went into the training.
"Now it is my turn to pay it back. I hope that I can get to Finland so that I can pay for my aunt's treatment in a hospital.
There are still medical examinations, permit issues, and orientation, but then, Circe should be ready to travel.
In the Finnish winter she will have to learn to use a woolen cap and learn to dodge ice falling from the eaves of roofs.
But it was not any easier in Saudi Arabia, Circe recalls. There were problems if one was seen without a scarf, or with the hair undone.
Circe could face at least a two year separation from her husband. Arturo is a seaman. It is expensive to call from the ship's satellite phone, so usually he is in contact only when he gets into port, within range of a mobile phone base station.
"The last time I got a text message last week. He was somewhere in the Middle East, going to Africa, I suppose."
Arturo has docked in Finnish harbours as well.
Opteam has promised to help those going to Finland in getting their families to join them, but it is not easy. Arturo would also need a job and a residence permit.
In their wedding picture, he looks happy and handsome. Circe keeps the picture on her night stand. The wedding was nearly two years ago, and the two have not seen much of each other since then. Even the wedding presents - a rice cooker, a thermos bottle, and the rest, are still in their boxes, piled up in a corner of Circe's room.
The two have not yet found a place where they could settle together and set up a family. Such a place might be found in Tikkurila, for instance.