Why is Finland promoting jobs to candidates abroad if relocating with visa support is so difficult?

This blog post is part of a Q&A session hosted by Lidiia Salo, a career coach in Finland. To see the other questions that were asked and answered, and to watch the video recording, click here.

Question

You are saying there is an economic crisis in Finland, and many people are unemployed. That leads to difficulties coming to Finland with a work visa supported by a company. At the same time, Finland is advertising itself to international markets as a good place to move for work. Where is this contradiction coming from?

Answer

Indeed, a lot of money is being spent to promote Finland as a good country to move to. It is smart in the advertising sense. For example, we have Supercell, a big gaming company here. They would want to move some high-level senior professionals here, very specific for their market, and these people preferably should fall in love with Finland. Because, let's be honest, salaries might be better in many other countries.

So yes, Finland spends a lot of money on advertising campaigns, and it feels weird to people who are here and who work within the industry, and it feels weird to me as well.

I had a period of life when I was going and meeting with everyone and asking, okay, you're saying that Finland needs professionals, who do you mean Finland needs? And they were like, well, you know, we need tech people. True, tech people are very senior tech people who were needed before the economic crisis, but are not needed so much anymore. This is happening because there are enough good candidates currently available in the country.

Finland also used to need health care professionals. Again, not anymore. 

From the YLE article "Supply of foreign care workers dries up" from 25.10.2026: The care sector has long struggled with labour shortages. To plug the gap, Finland has sought to recruit nurses and carers from outside the European Union. But right now, the public sector's financial strain is affecting job opportunities for foreign nurses. 

Between January and April, only 32 applicants, mostly from the Philippines and Sri Lanka, received their first residence permit to work in health and social care, according to figures from the Finnish immigration service (Migri). During the same period last year, the agency granted more than 570 such work permits.