Immigration | According to basic Finns, immigrants are “hugely unemployed” – Is that true?

Basic Finns opposes the increase in work-related immigration sought by his government partners. Chairman of the parliamentary group of Basic Finns Jani Mäkelä has said that “immigrants are enormously unemployed”.

Mäkelä announced last week that immigration should be talked about “on the basis of facts and not imaginations”.

“If we already have tens of thousands of unemployed immigrants, then it obviously shows that there is no need for at least the type of immigration that has come before,” Mäkelä said at the summer meeting of the parliamentary group of Basic Finns in Kouvola.

Is the claim about the huge unemployment of immigrants true?

Work- and the employment statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs show that there really is an exceptionally large number of unemployed foreigners in Finland at the moment.

At the end of July, there were almost 50,000 foreigners registered as unemployed jobseekers, which is more than ever before.

Almost 11,000 of them were long-term unemployed, i.e. those who had been unemployed for more than a year. That is also the largest number in the history of the survey.

The unemployed however, the absolute number of foreigners alone does not indicate the weakness of the employment situation of immigrants. The number of unemployed may also increase due to the increase in the total number of immigrants.

The statistics compiled by the Vatti Datahuone unit of the State Economic Research Center show that the share of full-time employees among all 20-64-year-olds born abroad has increased in the 21st century.

That is, although the number of unemployed foreign job seekers has increased, the number of working immigrants has increased more. The most recent statistical year, 2022, was the peak year for the employment of immigrants.

At the same time, the difference in the employment of those born in Finland and those born abroad has narrowed.

But how has the employment of immigrants developed after 2022?

At the request of Helsingin Sanomat, Datahuone’s researchers compiled fresh data that give indications of a worrying turn of events.

Since there are no statistics on full-time employment for the years 2023–2024, the researchers generally looked at the share of the working-age population who received salary income.

After 2022, the share of those who received wage income has decreased among those born abroad, while the share among those born in Finland has increased.

The employment development of immigrants has therefore shown signs of weakening.

The data room investigator Max Toikka estimates that the employment of immigrants reflects the weakening of the general economic and employment situation.

“The employment of those in a weak labor market position, such as young people and immigrants, usually reacts to cyclical changes more than the average population,” says Toikka.

The employment situation of those who came from Ukraine can also affect the statistics.

“But they are by no means sufficient to explain the decline in the employment of all immigrants, because their share of this total is still small,” states Toikka.

Basic Finns Mäkelä’s concern about the unemployment of immigrants is therefore supported by statistics.

However, from the slight weakening of the employment situation, no conclusions can yet be drawn as to whether work-related immigration is beneficial or harmful to Finland. The statistics discussed in the story also include those who moved to Finland for reasons other than work.

In a report published in the spring Vatti and Aalto University researchers showed that the high employment rate of those who moved to Finland from outside the EU specifically for work declines after the initial years, but stabilizes at the level of the general population. Similarly, the ratio of taxes paid and income transfers received is roughly the same for them as for the general population.