Watching the ongoing government negotiations to give birth to Finland’s most right-wing and anti-immigration government can raise one’s blood pressure. The sticky issue National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) prime minister-designate, Petteri Orpo, hopes to resolve the sticky issue of migration and environmental policy.
In the face of a chronic labor shortage due to Finland’s graying population, the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* have made an ultimatum to Orpo: We will not form part of any government that does not tighten migration policy significantly.
One of the sticking points in the negotiations is how much a non-EU citizen makes in order to work in Finland. In the beginning, the PS stated a 3,000 euro minimum but is ready to lower it to 2,500 euros.
At a Yle A-studio talk show program Wednesday, Ilkka Oksala of the Federation of Finnish Industries (EK) said that one of the factors threatening economic growth is a labor shortage.
“The problem concerning [foreign] labor is that there is too little of it,” said Oksala, “so we should not place obstacles but contrarily place conditions that will bring labor migrants [to Finland]. We are in dire need of [more] labor.”
Technology Industries of Finland chairperson, Jaakko Eskola, who did not participate in the A-studio talk show, believes that Finland needs during a 28-year period 50,000 labor migrants annually, or 1.4 million people.
If these estimates are true, Finland faces onerous challenges to plug its labor shortage.
How have we arrived at such a critical situation? If we look at what Finland has done to promote foreign labor and cultural diversity in the past, the present crisis should not come to a surprise. Finland has done a poor job at figuring out how to resolve its demographic problems leaving the future to chance.
The most outrageous matter is that Kokoomus, a party that should know better, is just as infatuated with xenophobia as the PS.
Another matter that is difficult to phantom is how a party like the PS, which got 20% of the votes, is dictating the country’s future and our impoverishment.
If Orpo caves into PS demands about tightening migration policy and rolling back plans to lower emissions by 2035, it will be one of the biggest mistakes and will cause the country to pay a high price for such follies.
