Director of Quality Assurance Subrata Mishra has worked as an IT expert in Finland for 12 years. During that time, the number of Indians in Finland has multiplied.
Mishra plans to spend the rest of his life in Finland, primarily because his family enjoys it so much here.
– The balance of work and free time, the quality of life that Finland offers… in my experience, no other country offers it.
Family is the most important thing for Indians, says the consultant Mittal Mehtawho has lived in Finland for ten years.
– When I worked in Mumbai, the commute could take three hours. Here, the quality of life is completely different, and there is time for family and leisure, says Mehta.
Indian IT and nursing professionals are now highly sought after in the European labor market. India is the world with great force a country inhabited by a young nation.
In addition, the country has good education and the IT sector is fashionable among young people.
Subrata Mishra himself has already studied three degrees, in the commercial and IT fields. He is currently completing a new technical degree at Helsinki Metropolia.
– Big Indian cities like Bangalore and Chennai are information technology hubs. They have international IT companies on every street. Young people see their success and want to enter the industry, Mishra explains.
In Finland too, the number of Indians has clearly increased. Their share of all immigrants is already the third largest after the Russians and Swedes.
In Finland, English is fine
Indians go to Finland and other western countries either for education, work or love, says Mittal Mehta. He himself belongs to the last group.
Mehta would hardly be in Finland without his spouse. After graduation, he was content working in his family’s business in Mumbai and had no intention of leaving India.
Then she got to know her husband, who at the time of the meeting was visiting his native India. After the couple got married, Mittal followed his spouse to Finland.
Mehta works for Capgemini, a large international consulting company, whose Finnish offices already have around 20 percent of employees from abroad.
What Mishra and Mehta have in common is that they don’t speak fluent Finnish. Both say they did well in English as well.
– Now my daughter is in a Finnish kindergarten. Having already gone through language courses before, I am more motivated to learn Finnish together with him, says Mehta.
Western countries benefit from Indian education
The attractiveness of different countries in the eyes of immigrants has been discussed a lot recently, especially in Germany, which strives to digitalize as quickly as possible after lagging behind, for example, Finland for years.
Director of Research at the DIW Institute of Economics Alexander S. Critic piipahti was recently in Helsinki talking about the international labor competition at the event of the German-Finnish Chamber of Commerce.
Germany is desperately trying to recruit Indian talent, because India has the right kind of talent.
Read more: Germany was terrified for its entire industry and well-being. Immigration policy will be reinvented, because otherwise we will run out of workers
India’s population is growing, and it is training a lot of young people, especially in the IT sector. Europe and Germany benefit from this.
– This is because India itself is not able to keep everyone highly educated and give them good jobs, says Kritikos.
The problem is that most Indians go to the US or Canada.
– In comparison with the United States, the attraction of European labor is going really poorly. In order to secure future development, we must become more attractive and soon, Kritikos emphasizes.
Isn’t it immoral to hire workers from poor India, in which case the know-how is leaking to Western countries?
It is not, Kritikos replies. First of all, it is better for a person to get a job than to be completely jobless in India.
– Secondly, if India had a need, it could hold on to talent better than it currently does. Thirdly, India benefits from migration when those who have moved to Western countries send money home or when they move back to their home country with more experience, Kritikos lists.
According to him, one of the biggest problems is that there are many people in Europe who are afraid of immigration. The task of the decision-makers would be to have a social discussion on the topic now and explain to people how important the issue is.
Now the public immigration debate focuses on asylum seekers. The discourse must be changed.
– We don’t have enough people here to meet our needs in the labor market, and we need the immigration of highly educated people now more than ever before, says Kritikos emphatically.
English should be emphasized
In Subrata Mishra’s opinion, Finland’s strength compared to other countries is that the international experts here can also manage in English. He tells his thoughts about it in the video that is the main image of this story.
Finland’s “bilingualism” is unknown to him abroad; that you can also live your life in English.
– I speak English everywhere, and I have never received a complaint that I do not speak Finnish. Never, ever, ever, Mishra emphasizes.
– In France and Sweden, I encountered that they didn’t want to speak English to me. In Finland – never. Sometimes people don’t know some words, but then they google it, and it always helps.
– This fact that Finland is English-speaking should also be used to make Finland attractive.
Mishra initially went abroad the way Indians often do, on assignment from his employer. First the road led to Indonesia, then Denmark, Sweden, France and finally Finland.
Although Finns prefer to speak English more than, for example, Swedes or French, in the written language English is inferior.
– When you read food product information sheets or any brochures, in Sweden they are always translated into English as a second language. Also in France, the second language is English. But in Finland it’s Swedish, says Mishra.
In his opinion, the issue is very important from an immigrant’s point of view. Therefore, in his opinion, it would be worthwhile to consider making English the official language in Finland.
What separates Indians from Finnish IT workers is specialization. Precisely “deep” specialization is now in high demand in the Finnish technology labor market.
This does not mean that the Finns are not, in Mishra’s opinion, very tough experts.
– They manage entities and know many things. The Indians, on the other hand, have been able to work on one part of the process throughout their ten-year career, when they have developed top skills in it.
“I’m happy to pay taxes for quality of life”
In Mishra’s opinion, Finland’s strengths are, in addition to the prevalence of the English language, social security, the health system, the low number of crimes and freedom of expression.
In Finland, it is simply easier to be a foreigner who does not know the local language than in many other countries.
– When I walk outside at one in the morning, I don’t really have to be afraid anywhere. There are no such areas in Finland, says Mishra.
He says that he has received inquiries from Finland as well from other Indians who, for example, have received a job offer in India from a Finnish company.
– My answer is always: “It’s worth moving if you want a good life. I wouldn’t be here myself if this wasn’t a good place.”
In Mishra’s opinion, salaries in the IT sector in Finland are also not lost to other European countries.
– Of course, if you want to get rich, then Finland might not be the right place. But people are different, and I myself am happy to pay taxes to get a good quality of life, says Mishra.
You can discuss the topic on 26.5. until 11 p.m.