Students doing group work

There are more than 20,000 foreign degree students pursuing their studies at Finnish higher education institutions. They also complete traineeships in Finland and look for jobs here after graduating. Additionally, thousands of students come directly from foreign higher education and vocational institutions to do traineeships and work placements in Finland every year.

In 2016, The Finnish National Agency for Education conducted a study and influence project titled New Competence for SMEs, which analysed how and why Finnish SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) utilise these international talents and what obstacles there are to their utilisation. The project focused on SMEs, as these companies have created a large share of the new jobs in the Finnish enterprising sector in recent years.

The objective of the project was to lower companies’ barriers for recruiting international talents and to help educational institutions develop their cooperation with companies. The project outcomes can also be utilised to promote the employment of other international talents.

The project partners were the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, Helsinki Region Chamber of Commerce, Hanken School of Economics, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Omnia, Talent Tampere, Saranen Consulting and Me2We.