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talkpolitics
(See? Even the elks are happy there)
You've heard about the Finns' crazy ideas about paying people a minimum amount of money for just being alive and not working, right? Well, now there's this new initiative, a 90-day stay in Finland, free of charge, full medical care for the whole family, and free education for the kids. This project includes 5,300 people who'll be living for 3 months in what's been declared the world's happiest country.
The Helsinki Business Hub, an international trade and investment agency from the country's capital is behind this. The scheme offers a 3-month stay in Helsinki to all applicants working at the IT sector, no matter which part of the world they're from. Like I said, they'd be allowed to take their whole family with them.
Finland's aiming to attract as much talent in the sector as possible by offering a stay for this certain period free of charge for the applicants. They'll be working for their companies in a home-office mode while spending time in Finland, and after the 3-month term is over, they'll be able to decide if they want to stay in Helsinki for good, and apply for citizenship.
But sorry to rain on your parade... If you've already decided to throw everything behind and rush to Helsinki, I'll have to disappoint you. The application deadline has expired. Curiously, about 30% of the applications came from the US and Canada. The rest are almost evenly spread across countries as distant and diverse as the UK and Vanuatu.
Most of those adventurous folks who've decided to give it a shot, do have families and want to work home office for their current employers, at least initially. More than 800 of them are entrepreneurs who want to launch start-ups of their own, and there are 60 investors. The rest are just looking for jobs.
Finland is of course the home of Nokia, SMS, 5G and Linux, and also the country with the largest amount of digital start-ups per capita. Tech giants like Google, Bayer, GE Healthcare, have recently launched their campuses in the country, where they're training future top-quality employees.
Helsinki is one of the world's largest tech hubs. The sector wants to create new 50 thousand jobs by the end of 2021, so it urgently needs fresh talent. And because Finland has embraced this perspective, it's been seeing its face being transformed by the day.
The program is supposed to provide approved applicants with the full paperwork necessary, a home, a school, health care for their families, and also the Business Hub would assist them with getting a permanent residence permit if they choose so. In contrast to other programs for obtaining a gold visa, this one doesn't include a requirement for investment or paying extra fees. It's just that Finland doesn't want to take people's money for citizenship - it wants more long-term relations with its potential future citizens. The main question in this case is, are all those people from other places and cultures willing to adopt the Finns' lifestyle? Don't forget it's dark for almost half a year there, after all!
It's no surprise that Finland has consistently been ranked the #1 happiest country in the world (for 3 years in a row now), despite its challenging climate. In fact, there's a complex of factors for this, from social and economic to purely environmental. And I do mean purely, literally. It's got some of the cleanest air in the world, and an extremely beautiful nature. I needn't mention the Finnish party culture I suppose, the booze, and the saunas. Oh, and their awesome heavy metal music. But don't mind me, I'm biased.
But seriously. One of Finland's biggest advantages in attracting young talent through programs like this, is its image of one of the safest and friendliest places in the world, politically stable, with a predictable legislative system and a fair judicial one. On top of all that, it's one of the countries that have managed to deal with the Covid pandemic in the best ways so far. The Covid deaths per 1 million are just 85 there, one of the lowest in the world. They've got a world-class health care. Their education system is just legendary. We've talked about this before (curiously, exactly 4 years ago, btw), and I could still share volumes.
Forward-thinking businesses tend to get enthusiastic about such places, you know. Therefore, socialist utopias like this project suddenly stop sounding as crazy as they would in other circumstances.
(no subject)
Date: 28/12/20 08:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/12/20 17:23 (UTC)I'm also impressed that anyone with a Russia that close to it can be the happiest country in the world, so go Finland!
(no subject)
Date: 28/12/20 17:41 (UTC)