An Indian journalist approached me as the publisher of Trade Union News from Finland inquiring about job opportunities for migrant journalists writing in English. As Daryl Taylor with whom I co-operate in producing Trade Union News from Finland is very active with immigrants in Finland, I asked him to reply to the journalist. Here are some excerpts from Daryl's reply. - Juhani Artto
Helsinki (30.01.2003 - Daryl Taylor) On a brief perusal of your letter and CV I got the feeling that you aren't likely to find much work in Finland. There are only just over 7,000 native speakers of English here, and the home market for English language media as such is otherwise fairly marginal. Some of the mainstream media run English language services on a small scale, but I don't get the feeling that it's much of an industry financially speaking.
Various efforts have been made in the past to launch regular printed media in English, but none of these has enjoyed much success. Demographic trends suggest that this is a market niche worth watching, however.Finland is a bit off the beaten track for migration, and does not have a reputation as a land of opportunity. Instead it's a rather cold country with high taxation and an unusual language, but it enjoys high social cohesion, a unique and interesting cultural life and comprehensive social services.
Outside of the technology-based industries, most immigrants wind up in Finland because of some pre-existing connection to the country.So the crucial question to ask is: why the special interest in Finland? If you have no special interest in Finland, as opposed to the UK, Sweden or France, then I would rate your immigration prospects as effectively zero. On the other hand, if there is some special reason for targeting Finland, then your chances improve quite a lot.
The most common reason behind queries such as yours is a personal relationship with someone who lives here. Broadly speaking, the immigration system respects such relationships where they have been shown to exist. It is also quite open-minded, with the line drawn somewhere between polygamous relationships (not accepted) and same-sex relationships (accepted without a shadow of prejudice).