MDI is developing an approach to international and national labour force matching in Finland

This year, MDI has been extensively involved in developing themes for international and national labour matching. According to the population forecast published in the summer of 2021, immigration is and will be the only factor in the growth of the working-age population in most parts of the country. This year, we have had the opportunity to examine with our development partners, e.g. themes of integration, immigration and labour matching and competence needs.

Supporting the preparation of integration and immigration programmes

MDI has this past year been able to support Finland in becoming more international and is helping to better integrate immigrants into working life. We have supported the preparation of the City of Helsinki’s integration programme, where we have evaluated the ongoing programme and worked extensively with various industries and interest groups to create guidelines for the new integration programme.

In addition, we were able to influence the reform needs in respect of the promotion of integration when our expert Sari Pitkänen was heard during the preparation of the Government report. MDI’s views were heard from the perspective of the effectiveness evaluation of Helsinki Skills Centre, which was completed this autumn. The committee drew attention to the fact that there are well-functioning services available to immigrants, but on the other hand, there are not enough services available that meet the individual needs of clients at the very beginning of the integration path.

Next year, we will continue our work on international labour migration and integration, targeting people who are already living in Finland and/or who have just moved to Finland, through a survey on regional migration strategies to be published in January 2022 and the preparation of the South Ostrobothnia immigration programme, which will be completed in June 2022.

On the challenges of workforce availability

Almost all areas are overshadowed by concerns about workforce availability. Difficulties in reconciling the jobs on offer and the skills of the workforce will affect regional vitality in both the short and long terms. In addition to reacting to the situation, labour matching problems require foresight. MDI is currently building a labour supply and demand matching forecast model for the Salo area which includes an analysis of the labour market situation and forecasts on Salo’s future labour demand and availability for 2025 and 2030.

During the autumn of 2021, we also identified the ‘skills needs’ of the Häme labour market and developed forecasting so it would become a more mutually beneficial, parallel and more effective operation. An open webinar was held promoting the results of our survey. During the webinar, leading expert Mikko Valtakari and expert Juho Nyman presented their findings on the current state of collecting and utilising knowledge in Häme, as well as presenting recommendations and development suggestions for more efficient utilisation of knowledge.