In Finland, there is a battery factory where people from over 60 different countries work. This is not due to a labor shortage or low wages.
Instead, the reason lies in the Finnish unemployment and social security systems, whose high level provides the unemployed with a relatively comfortable life, so they do not need to leave their hometown even when they become unemployed. As a result, Finnish companies have to seek staff from around the world.
This is a problem whose root cause is the oversized socialist thinking that has entrenched itself in Finnish society, where the society aims to absorb all setbacks related to individuals' lives. The result is simultaneous unemployment and labor shortages.
Indirectly, this also means that Finns are not very eager to start businesses. It would require taking risks, and in addition, the unemployment compensation following a potential failure would be almost nonexistent compared to a salaried worker. Therefore, only a few are willing to start new companies.
The current right-wing government led by Petteri Orpo (National Coalition Party) has promised in its program to "implement a wide range of reforms to improve incentives to work, simplify the social security system, facilitate employment and provision of work, develop international recruitment, increase local bargaining in the labour market, improve wellbeing at work and the integration of work and family, and continue the reform of employment services."
It remains to be seen whether they will succeed in their goal. However, it is already clear at this stage that the reforms are opposed by both the left-wing opposition and the trade union movement. This was already seen in the winter when unions tried to prevent the government from taking the first measures aimed at improving the efficiency of Finnish working life with a wide wave of strikes.
It is to be hoped, therefore, that the government will succeed in implementing the rest of its plans, and that Finnish companies will be able to get domestic labor if they wish. This does not mean that employees cannot be hired from abroad, but rather that society would not have to simultaneously support able-bodied but unwilling people elsewhere.
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