News

According to the September 2021 Employment Bulletin, the number of unemployed foreign jobseekers continues to fall much more slowly than the number of unemployed Finnish jobseekers following the pandemic. At the same time, there is regional variation in the unemployment rate. However, the employment and participation rates of those born abroad have risen.

All ministries will take the ‘@gov.fi’ suffix into use in the course of 2021. The email addresses of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment have changed to the format [email protected] on in September. The change also applies to the email addresses of the Centre of Expertise in Immigrant Integration and the Integration partnership program.

The online service maintained by the Centre of Expertise in Immigrant Integration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has been updated. The old kotouttaminen.fi website was disabled and the actual version of the kotoutuminen.fi website was released on Wednesday 1 September 2021. As a result, only kotoutuminen.fi website will be available to users.

The number of unemployed foreign jobseekers is higher than it was in July 2019, and their number has fallen at a slower rate than that of Finnish jobseekers. The recovery in employment has been particularly slow in Uusimaa. Seasonal unemployment in summer has affected the figures for July.

Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) provides updated information in Finnish, Swedish and English on the coronavirus and when to seek medical care. Information on actions taken in municipalities regarding the coronavirus COVID-19 is available in several languages in the municipalities’ online services. Information about the coronavirus is available in several languages in the media.

The Centre of Expertise in Immigrant Integration has commissioned a study on municipalities’ integration programmes. The aim is to provide an overall picture of the content, drafting processes and the importance of the programmes at local and regional levels in the work promoting integration. The study will be carried out by the consulting and research company Innolink together with the Migration Institute.

Unemployment among job seekers of foreign origin and foreign-language speakers has decreased across the country, but it still remains above the level recorded before the coronavirus epidemic. The decrease in the number of unemployed people has been the slowest in Uusimaa.

The Nordic Council of Ministers is looking for experts with migrant background to participate in a forum focusing on integration. The aim of the programme is to exchange experiences and expert information and to promote dialogue in society.

In many municipalities, immigrants are advised to seek information from online services or telephone services. In the current situation with the coronavirus outbreak, municipalities offer also advice by telephone in various languages. Some municipalities have published multilingual information on the coronavirus.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has published a glossary of integration, which harmonises the use of concepts of the Integration Act and services specified by it. The complete glossary is currently available only in Finnish.  The publication of the glossary is a starting point to a broader evaluation of integration and immigration concepts. The discussions on concepts are to continue at events for different target groups in the autumn and with the reform of the Integration Act. 

The number of job seekers who are of foreign origin has not decreased at the same rate as the number of Finnish job seekers. The number of unemployed people with refugee backgrounds was higher in May than in the previous year, but unemployment among those under 25 has decreased notably.

New provisions of the Aliens Act will prevent exploitation of foreign labour and improve the legal status of victims. The legislative amendment aims to make it easier to detect cases of exploitation and to protect victims of exploitation.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment published a brochure on employees’ rights for those who come to work in Finland today. At the same time, the Ministry launched a multilingual counselling service for seasonal workers arriving from abroad.  

The website maintained by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment’s Centre of Expertise in Immigrant Integration has undergone a redesign. At the same time, the Finnish name of the website has changed to kotoutuminen.fi. In connection with the redesign, the visual image of the centre of expertise was also revised. Kotoutuminen.fi is to be published as a beta version.

According to the Employment Bulletin of May 2021 by the Centre of Expertise in Immigrant Integration, the number of unemployed foreign jobseekers has decreased compared to the previous month. A decrease can also be observed as compared to the corresponding figure a year ago, when the number of unemployed jobseekers was high due to the pandemic.

The Advisory Board for Ethnic Relations (ETNO) has published materials on the upcoming municipal elections in seven languages. The materials will be used to encourage multilingual municipal residents to participate in decision-making and vote in the municipal elections in June 2021.

As stated in Prime Minister Marin’s Government Programme, compulsory education will be extended in 2021. With the extension, the minimum school leaving age will be raised to 18 years and student guidance and welfare services will be improved.

The Integration partnership programme is building an open nationwide network of actors involved in the work related to integration and social inclusion. In a few months, more than 140 actors promoting integration, refugee reception and social inclusion have registered for the partnership programme. Registration is continuous on the kotouttaminen.fi website.

The integration partnership programme of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment builds a national network of operators involved in the work related to the integration and social inclusion.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment is preparing a partnership programme on the promotion of integration and the receptiveness of society. Different actors’ views on cooperation in promoting integration are examined in a survey conducted as part of the partnership programme.