Report: Access to foreign labor can be a “matter of fate” for SMEs

Gigglebug Entertaiment is a Finnish success story.

The children’s series produced by the animation studio located in Vallila, Helsinki, are ordered by such giants of the streaming and television world as Amazon Prime, Disney, Netflix, Nickelodeon ja Warner Bros.

Two years ago, Gigglebug also made domestic television history when it signed a production contract with Disney for the children’s animation it developed Yellow Snowman.

However, the animation studio would not have reached such achievements with the strength of its Finnish professionals alone. The success story has also been built by a group of international experts in the animation field who moved to Finland from abroad.

“In June, 125 people worked in our three most recent productions, of which 71 percent were foreigners. Their importance to the productions was crucial,” says the human resources manager of Gigglebug Entertainment Sanni Vainio.

“Even though Finnish schools are graduating more talented people all the time, there are not so many international level animation creators in Finland that we would be able to do without foreign labor.”

Free not many other companies in Finland could handle foreign labor. This is what the independent research institute E2 Research published on Tuesday Report headache.

According to the report, especially for Finnish small and medium-sized companies, the availability and attraction of foreign labor to Finland is even “a matter of fate.”

“To some extent, it came as a surprise to me how many SMEs have found themselves in a difficult situation with the availability of labor”, says the doctor of political science, docent who led the research project Mari K. Niemi E2 About research.

Niemi himself interviewed some of the forty SME entrepreneurs whose experiences of hiring foreign labor were heard in the project.

“Entrepreneurs who usually don’t participate in surveys also went along. They wanted their voices to be heard, because in their opinion the importance of foreign workers for SMEs is not sufficiently understood in Finland.”

Report also shows the importance of foreign workers to Finnish workplaces.

According to the report, especially in sparsely populated areas, the continuation of business operations has sometimes only been possible with the help of foreign labor. A foreign employee who has moved to Finland may ultimately save the bread of a Finnish employee.

“A company operating in a small town was on the verge of collapse due to a lack of labor, but then it found foreign experts. Thanks to them, the positions of Finnish employees have been saved, when the company has not had to stop and fire everyone,” says Niemi.

Even small towns benefit from their businesses, which remain afloat with the help of foreign workers. Their economy and attractiveness would fade quickly without companies employing municipal residents.

Niemi points out that municipalities also play a role in whether local companies succeed in attracting foreign labor to work.

“At the moment, many entrepreneurs operating outside big cities put in a long day helping their employees who have moved from abroad in their basic everyday life, because the integration services offered by the municipality and the teaching of the Finnish language are not available to those at work.”

From Espoo CEO of Taloustaivaa Anneli Rosenberg would be in trouble without its foreign workers.

Financial administration professionals are in high demand in Finland. In the competition for employees, small and medium-sized accounting firms like Taloustaivaa easily come second to the big players in the field.

“Employees of accounting offices are fought tooth and nail. Finns mostly choose the employer who is able to pay a few euros more in salary,” says Rosenberg.

According to him, Taloustaivas would hardly have become a profitable company if foreign workers had not been found alongside Finns.

Nowadays, for many immigrants who studied financial administration at the beginning of their careers, it is the first job in their own field. Rosenberg cooperates with schools by hiring immigrant students as interns.

“Four years ago, one of the vocational schools in Oulu contacted me and asked if I would accept a student who had moved to Finland from Afghanistan as an intern. Nowadays, this student works as a foreman for our accountants and is also one of the company’s shareholders,” says Rosenberg.

From Kuopio Finvector is no longer an SME rather than a growth company. In three years, it has grown from a company with more than 200 employees to a biopharmaceutical factory employing 530 people.

Finvector’s personnel expert Eetu Salmelan according to the company’s growth, it has been crucial that it has succeeded in hiring experts from outside Finland.

“Manufacturing our biopharmaceuticals requires the kind of in-depth expertise that cannot be found only in Finland.”

Finvector is also an example of a success story that foreign employees have been building together with Finns.

Finvector’s history begins in 1993, when a professor of molecular medicine Seppo Ylä-Herttuala founded a company alongside his research work. As a result of long development work was born A medicine called Adstiladrin. It is the first virus-based gene therapy drug and precision medicine developed for the treatment of superficial bladder cancer.

So far, the drug is not manufactured anywhere else in the world. In 2022, it received marketing authorization for the US market from the FDA.

Finvector’s Finnish and foreign employees have been helpful in finding international talent. Several employees who came to the company from abroad have been hired on the recommendation of a colleague who already works in the company, says Salmela.

“For us, a person who was born in Kuopio might work daily with a person who moved to Finland from New Zealand. All in all, 54 nationalities work at Finvector.”

Minister of Labour Art Satonen (kok) presented the government’s bill in October, which limits the stay of unemployed foreigners in Finland.

Previously, in Finland it was not defined how quickly a new job should be found, but with the law coming into force in April next year, this will change.

According to it, a foreigner working in Finland with a work-based residence permit now has three months to find a new job if his employment ends prematurely. If the person does not get a job or presents another reason for his stay, he loses his permit and has to leave Finland.

The change does not apply to permanent residence permits, family permits, EU citizens, foreign students or researchers. An exception has also been made in the law for special experts, top and middle management of companies, and for persons who have stayed in Finland for more than two years with a work-based residence permit.

According to E2 Research’s Mari K. Nieme, the research institute’s recent report conveys a rather different message about the need for foreign labor in Finland than the government’s bill.

“The core message was that the growth, success and even existence of many Finnish companies in the world requires not only Finnish labor but also foreign labor.”

If since foreign labor is as necessary for Finnish SMEs as they describe in the E2 survey report, then couldn’t the companies just guarantee the continuation of work for their foreign employees?

Unfortunately, there are always downturns in the economy from time to time. Then the demand for the services or products sold by the company may weaken and the company may have to lay off its employees due to its profitability, even if it does not want to.

And then there are companies like Gigglebug Entertainment, whose work is primarily project-based.

“Animated series have an average of twenty episodes. When they are done, the work is stopped until either the next production season or a new series is ordered from us. Sometimes the unemployed period between the previous and the next project can be longer than three months”, says Sanni Vainio, HR manager at Gigglebug.

It is possible for Gigglebug’s foreign employees to stay in the country only if their spouses have a valid employment relationship in Finland. Then they can apply for a residence permit with their spouse’s employment contract. However, obtaining a permit requires that the spouse’s income is sufficient from the point of view of the Immigration Office.

According to Vainio, the company would save a lot if it didn’t always have to fish for the employees it lost abroad when new production starts.

“Leaving and returning is also difficult for our employees. Many of them have brought their families with them. Their spouses work here and their children go to school here. Then momentary unemployment dismantles the life that was started in Finland to its basic elements.”