The goal of the Integration SIB project was to find employment for 2,500 immigrants over a period of three years. At the same time, new training and employment models were tested to accelerate the employment of immigrants and to enable flexible combinations of education and work.
The rapid employment of immigrants facilitates their integration to the Finnish society, eases the shortage of labour faced by Finnish employers, and leads to public savings by increasing tax revenue.
In the experiment, carried out by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, the employment of immigrants was promoted through private investment using the SIB (Social Impact Bond) impact investing model. Funding for the activity came from investors who also bore the economic risks arising from the project. The state only paid for the outcome, which in this case means savings in the public sector.
A total of 2,217 immigrants took part in the integration SIB experiment and 1,812 of them performed more than 70 student working days. Participants will be supported for another three years after starting in the experiment and for this reason, many of them are still in employed.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment will commission an external assessment of the effectiveness of the experiment. In the assessment, comparisons will be made between the taxes paid and the unemployment benefits received by the participants and the corresponding data of the control group. The data will be monitored for three years after the start of the experiment.
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Integration SIB project
