Measures Proposed to Help Immigrants

A bill includes improvements to assist the integration of immigrants and the reception given to asylum seekers.

Currently immigrants have a long wait before receiving language tuition. Other courses aimed at helping immigrants adapt to Finnish society are often too short to be effective.

Housewives, the diasbled and sick as well as pensioners fall through the net without any efforts to help them adapt to Finnish society.

Problems of integration are visible in unemployment statistics. Only half of the 100,000 immigrants in Finland have a job.

The new bill sets out to ensure that all immigrants will have the opportunity to study Finnish or Swedish and gain the chance to familarise themselves with Finnish society and how it functions.

Local authorities and other bodies will have a duty to see that immigrants quickly participate in such courses. In this way, it is hoped that more people will find themselves on the job market.

Last year, some 20,000 people moved to Finland, the majority came from outside the EU.

YLE24