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Finland has received more than 5,300 applications in a month for an innovative scheme that offers foreign technology workers and their families the opportunity to move to the Nordic country for 90 days to see if they want to make the move permanent.
“We are not the first on many relocation lists, but we know that once people come, they tend to stay,” said Johanna Huurre of Helsinki Business Hub, who designed the campaign. “There is a lot of competition worldwide for talent, so we had to think creatively.”
Huurre said the Finnish 90-day plan had attracted the most interest in the United States and Canada, which accounted for about 30% of applicants. The rest were evenly distributed, with more than 50 Britons and one applicant from the island of Vanuatu in the South Pacific.
Most had families and wanted to work remotely for their current employers, at least initially, Huurre said, while more than 800 were entrepreneurs looking to launch new businesses, 60 were investors and the rest were looking for jobs.
Finland, which brought Nokia, SMS, 5G and Linux to the world, has a booming 6 billion euro startup scene with the highest number of digital startups per capita in the world. Technology multinationals such as Google, Bayer and GE Healthcare have also recently opened campuses in the country.
The now closed 90 Day Finn program will provide selected applicants with all necessary official documentation, suitable accommodation, school or daycare for their children, remote work facilities, introductions to technology centers and networks in and around Helsinki, and help with permanent residence.
“It has been a great campaign to showcase Finland,” said Joonas Halla of Business Finland. “The good thing is the practical approach. The tech sector here is really thriving, by one estimate, it should create 50,000 new jobs by 2021. We need the talent. “
Newcomers, particularly from the US, are drawn not only by job prospects, but also by universal healthcare, generous parental leave, work-life balance, proximity to nature, and the way the government has handled the coronavirus pandemic, Halla said.
Finland, ranked as the happiest country in the world for three years in a row, has managed to keep its death toll from Covid-19 at 85 per million inhabitants, one of the lowest rates in the world. “Companies have really caught on to that,” Halla said. “From a business perspective, everything helps build trust and that is vital.”
