Immigration | Why did the forecast for the amount of immigration to Finland collapse? This is how the ministry reasons

Prognosis The amount of net immigration to Finland has collapsed, according to the financial overview published by the Ministry of Finance on Monday.

As recently as last summer, the ministry estimated that between 2023 and 2025, approximately 40,000 immigrants would come to Finland each year.

In Monday’s forecast, the estimated amount of immigration has collapsed to 30,000 immigrants for 2024 and to 15,000 immigrants for 2025.

Among the forecasts made during the last year, the spring 2024 forecast estimated the largest immigration, according to which there would be a total of 163,000 immigrants in the years 2023–2025.

In Monday’s forecast, the corresponding figure is 103,000.

Ministry of Finance of the head of the public finance unit, financial advisor Janne Huovarin according to the strong change in the forecast is due to a change in the source used by the ministry.

Until now, the net immigration forecast has been made on the basis of Statistics Finland’s estimate three years ago, which the Ministry of Finance has updated with its own estimate.

In 2023, no less than 58,000 immigrants arrived in Finland exceptionally, which is why the Ministry of Finance also updated the forecast upwards based on its own assessment.

“However, we would not like to use our own population forecast, so we changed it in the summer forecast to Eurostat’s forecast, which has been updated this spring, so last year’s rapid increase in immigration has been taken into account,” says Huovari.

Eurostat is a statistical center under the European Commission.

“In Eurostat’s forecast, net immigration will return to the previous level next year. It might be a little too low, but net immigration has clearly decreased at the beginning of the year.”

On Monday in the published forecast, the Finnish economy will start to recover from the recession next year, but the debt of the public finances will continue to grow.

However, according to Huovari, the changes in the immigration forecast had little effect on this estimate. Population development has a greater impact on the long-term forecast, which was not updated now.