Immigrants feel well treated at work
Press release 3/2016, 14 Jan 2016
As part of the integration of immigrants, getting a job and adapting to work benefits both immigrants and society at large. Supervisors play a central role in immigrants’ adjustment to Finnish work life. According to a recent study of employees of foreign origin, the majority (63%) claimed to receive adequate support from their supervisors. As much as 78 per cent of workers with foreign backgrounds feel that they are treated equally at the workplace.
These are the results of the Work and Well-being among Persons of Foreign Origin study of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Statistics Finland, and the National institute for Health and Welfare.
“From the point of view of their integration, it’s encouraging that immigrants feel that they receive good, equal treatment from others at Finnish workplaces,” says Senior Researcher Ari Väänänen, from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH).
“But workers of foreign origin do feel that they get less support from their co-workers than Finnish speakers,” continues Väänänen. Sixty six per cent of non-native employees felt that they received very much or a fair amount of support from their colleagues, whereas among Finnish-speaking employees, the corresponding percentage was 82 per cent.
Employees from EU and EFTA countries, as well as from North America, reported receiving the most co-worker support: the majority of these felt that they received very much or a fair amount of support from their colleagues (73%). In contrast, those from middle-eastern countries and Africa gave this support a lower ranking.
“Although even substantial differences can be seen in, for example, the way in which different groups feel they are treated, some of this variance can be explained by the different ways in which the separate cultures perceive their own situations and express themselves, and the fact that they have different criteria for doing this,” states Minna Toivanen, Researcher.
Integration at multicultural workplaces is often two-sided: immigrants are learning to adapt to Finnish work life, but at the same time, the whole work community is learning to act in a new, multicultural work environment.
Every other foreign worker has a foreign co-worker
Over half of the employees with foreign backgrounds who took part in the study worked at workplaces in which at least every fourth worker had an immigrant background.
Finnish workplaces employ just under 150 000 workers of foreign origin aged 15‒64, which means that a significant part of the personnel in thousands of Finnish workplaces are either first or second generation immigrants.
”The situation is completely different to that at the turn of the century, when widely multicultural workplaces were still very rare,” says Väänänen.
”However, we should still bear in mind that many foreign employees work at workplaces that have no other immigrants.”
In Finland, the foreign-origin population is concentrated in the Metropolitan area and in a few of the larger cities.
This information is based on the Survey on Work and Well-being among Persons of Foreign Origin, carried out by Statistics Finland, the National Institute for Health and Welfare and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. The results describe the foreign-origin population aged 15‒64 living permanently in Finland in 2014, that is, those whose both parents are foreign born. The research was also funded by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-country Nationals, the Ministry of Education and Culture, and the Ministry of Employment and the Economy. Original research report in Finnish (pdf) ja Press release in Finnish 17.12.2015.
Further information:
Ari Väänänen, Senior Researcher, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, tel. +358 40 582 4540
Minna Toivanen, Researcher, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, tel. +358 43 824 4506
See also FIOH’s Changing work life topic materials on www.ttl.fi/en
Working in Finland – Information for Immigrants in 13 languages
Working in Finland – Information for immigrants
The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) researches, develops and specializes in well-being at work. It promotes occupational health and safety and the well-being of workers. It is an independent institution under public law, working under the administrative sector of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. It has five regional offices, and its headquarters are in Helsinki. The number of personnel is about 600.