Talent Boost -ohjelma

Goals and results

Goal: Foreign talent will contribute to higher employment in Finland; foster quality, internationalisation and diversity in higher education institutions; drive the growth of companies and RDI activities, and promote foreign investment in Finland.

Targets:
1. Finland is an internationally attractive place to work, study, carry out research, and set up a business.
2. Employers are willing and able to recruit international talent.
3. The expertise of international specialists will drive the growth, internationalisation and renewal of Finnish companies and organisations.

Summary

Talent Boost is a cross-administrative programme designed to boost the immigration of senior specialists, employees, students and researchers. It focuses on attracting the kind of talent who will be instrumental for the growth and internationalisation of Finnish companies, and for research, development and innovation in the leading growth sectors. It also targets sectors suffering from a labour shortage.

Starting points

Immigration and the mobility of international talent are increasingly important from the employment and economic policy perspective, in that they strengthen Finland’s human capital and competitiveness, and create new jobs and innovations. At the moment, Finland does not sufficiently attract international labour, researchers, students or investors.

According to a number of reports, the availability of talent and domestic content of innovation policy are among the biggest obstacles to growth and internationalisation of companies and RDI activities.

Finland’s population growth is based exclusively on immigration. Without sufficient immigration, the supply of labour and, in the longer term, employment will fall significantly, which will affect Finland’s economic wellbeing, dependency ratio, employment rate and sustainability gap.

Despite a labour shortage, employers are unwilling to recruit workforce from abroad on a large scale. The attitude of employers towards international talent and foreign workforce presents a challenge. Employers should therefore receive more and better advice on international recruitment.

Finland’s slow residence permit processes are a hindrance to recruiting foreign talent to meet the business and RDI needs of companies at the right time and hurt Finland’s reputation among companies and experts. In the absence of well-functioning permit processes, companies avoid recruiting workforce from abroad or employing third-country citizens living in Finland.

Additional information

• Talent Boost