In recent years, Finland has joined the worldwide competition for “global talent.” Flagship programmes such as 90-Day Finn and Talent Boost advertise the country as an attractive destination for ambitious IT professionals, entrepreneurs, and investors. Promotional material emphasizes Finland’s high quality of life, its advanced digital infrastructure, and its need for skilled labour. By importing select professionals from abroad, policymakers hope to offset demographic decline, labour shortages, and the demands of a knowledge-based economy.
Yet beneath the polished surface of these campaigns lies a striking contradiction. While the state eagerly courts talent overseas, thousands of highly educated migrants already living in Finland remain underemployed or locked out of professional opportunities altogether. The paradox is glaring: why spend resources to attract new talent when the country consistently fails to recognize and integrate the expertise already within its borders?
Segmentation and Inequality in the Labour Market
A major reason for this paradox lies in the segmentation of Finland’s labour market. Migrants, particularly from outside the EU, are often channeled into low-paid service jobs regardless of their qualifications. Even those with Finnish degrees or advanced international training struggle to break into professional sectors. The outcome is both systemic underemployment and a persistent wage gap: foreign graduates can earn thousands of euros less annually than their Finnish counterparts with comparable qualifications.
This segmentation is not simply a matter of economics but of social hierarchy. It reflects entrenched ideas about who “belongs” in certain professional spaces and whose skills are deemed credible. The result is a two-tiered system where Finnish graduates are fast-tracked into stable careers, while foreign-born professionals are too often relegated to precarity.
Bureaucratic Barriers and Precarious Legal Status
Beyond the labour market itself, the Finnish residence permit system exacerbates insecurity for migrants. Non-EU students and researchers are required to prove substantial financial resources—€6,720 per year for students, €12,000 for researchers without contracts—while also maintaining private health insurance. Meeting these requirements forces many into low-paid or unstable work, not as a choice but as a condition for legal survival.
Instead of smoothing the path toward long-term stability, the bureaucracy entrenches precarity. Highly skilled migrants spend as much energy navigating deadlines, income thresholds, and paperwork as they do building their careers. In this context, the promise of Finland as a welcoming hub of global expertise rings hollow.
Language as Gatekeeper
Finnish language proficiency is often cited as a key barrier for migrants, but the issue is more complex than simple communication. Fluency does not always guarantee fair consideration. Too often, language functions as a proxy for ethnicity or cultural belonging. “Perfect Finnish” becomes less about grammar and vocabulary and more about signaling that one is “truly” Finnish.
This creates a vicious cycle. Employers claim they cannot hire foreign talent without language skills, but even when those skills are acquired, advancement remains elusive. At times, the insistence on language proficiency is less about operational necessity and more about preserving a workplace identity built around cultural homogeneity.
Networks and Invisible Recruitment
In Finland, as in many labour markets, access to jobs often depends on informal networks. Around 85% of openings are never advertised, meaning that employment frequently hinges on personal contacts. Migrants without established Finnish networks are thus excluded from opportunities long before they can present their qualifications.
Network-based recruitment benefits employers by reducing costs and ensuring new hires “fit” the existing workplace culture. But it simultaneously creates structural discrimination, privileging those already inside the circle and sidelining outsiders—particularly migrants whose contacts are limited to other marginalised groups. The result is systemic exclusion hidden behind the veneer of efficiency.
The Politics of Skill Recognition
Perhaps the most insidious barrier lies in how Finland defines “skill.” For migrants, the challenge is not only the recognition of foreign degrees but also the devaluation of expertise that does not align with racialized expectations. Research shows that employers often dismiss international experience or relegate highly educated professionals to manual or care work based on stereotypes of ethnicity and gender.
This reflects what could be called a racialised economy of skill: certain groups are imagined as “naturally” suited for particular jobs, regardless of their education. Asian women may be directed toward care work, African migrants toward manual labour, even when their qualifications point elsewhere. Such assumptions reveal that the problem is not migrants’ lack of expertise but the labour market’s unwillingness to acknowledge it.
Beyond the Myth of Equality
Finland frequently presents itself as a bastion of equality, yet the experiences of highly skilled migrants tell a different story. Legal barriers, discriminatory recruitment practices, and racialised definitions of skill all combine to create systemic exclusion. The gap between the official rhetoric of inclusion and the lived reality of migrants exposes a profound contradiction: Finland seeks to import talent but refuses to fully recognise the talent it already has.
This contradiction raises pressing questions. Is the true goal to resolve labour shortages, or to cultivate a very specific kind of migrant worker—one who fits neatly into pre-existing social and cultural categories? Does the pursuit of “global talent” really mean global, or does it primarily mean Western, white, and already networked into elite industries?
Toward a Genuine Politics of Inclusion
If Finland wishes to become a genuine hub for international expertise, it must move beyond the spectacle of attraction campaigns and address the systemic obstacles faced by migrants already in the country. This requires reforms to residence permits, transparent and equitable recruitment practices, and a redefinition of skill that values actual expertise over racialised assumptions.
Most importantly, it demands a cultural shift: an acknowledgment that equality is not achieved by rhetoric but by dismantling barriers to participation and advancement. Only then can Finland transform from a country that performs openness to one that practices it.
The critical question remains: will Finland continue to waste the potential of its highly skilled migrant residents, or will it embrace them as integral to the nation’s social and economic future? The answer will determine whether Finland’s pursuit of “global talent” is a strategy of genuine inclusion—or a carefully managed illusion.
