Five international professionals and their families spent the week touring Southwest Finland and learning about the variety of job opportunities available to them. They were visiting as winners of the Talent Call Turku contest, which seeks to attract skilled international workers to fill labor shortages in the region.
The winners and their families were:
Audrey Kow is a web-developer, who switched careers after six years as a chemist. She visited from Singapore with her husband Ryan Ho.
Andrius Dvinelis is a service engineer from Lithuania, with specialties in computing and medical physics. His spouse Viktorija Zepnickaite is a manufacturing scientist. She and their son Vainius joined him. Vainius celebrated his first birthday during the visit.
Jinu John is an IT expert from India. He visited with his wife Meera, who is a software tester and their children Jonathan and Ashlyn. Jonathan loves new experiences and Ashlyn especially loved meeting the Moomins.
Yllka Curri is a software engineer from Albania. She visited with her husband Afrim and their son Edon and daughter Sindi. Edon loves ducks.
Maris Staris is a branding and advertising specialist from Latvia. His wife Ilze is a web development team leader. She and their daughters Sofija and Betija visited.
During the week, the winners visited companies such as Silo.AI, PerkinElmer, Clewer and Meyer Turku where their skills are needed. They enjoyed local attractions, such as visiting the archipelago and were given bus and museum passes to use in their free time. During the company visits, the spouses and children got to enjoy city parks, lunch hosted by the City of Naantali, as well as Moominworld. The City of Kaarina hosted a dinner with the winners and some international workers who have lived in the Turku region for an extended time.
There is a worldwide shortage of skilled technical workers and many cities have held talent attraction competitions. The difference in Turku’s competition, was that the entire family was brought along for the visit. With most of our Talent Call winners, their spouses also bring valuable skills such as software development and biotech research and development. Finland is highly ranked worldwide as one of the best places raise a family and for overall work-life balance. In Southwest Finland, this is considered an important recruiting factor because studies have found that if an international worker’s family is not happy in the new country, the worker is not happy, which may lead to the worker leaving after a short period.
Along with information about jobs that may fit their skills, the Talent Call winners said they were very pleased with their visit to Yli-Maaria Koulu. Four of the five winners and their families have young children. They noted that the amount of play time and educational structure of the Finnish system was very appealing. The winners had a variety of reasons for why they would like to live and work in Turku. The reasons ranged from wanting a shorter commute, the better city services in Turku and the easy access to nature. Now companies are free to follow-up with the winners individually or the talents can apply for jobs on their own. We hope to see them all again soon in Southwest Finland.
In Southwest Finland, an estimated 30,000 workers are needed in the maritime and manufacturing sectors, according to the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. Because of the smaller population and an ageing population, international recruitment to fill positions is essential for continued economic development.
Turku Business Region would like to thank all of the organizations that made the visit possible. Talent Call Turku is orchestrated by City of Turku, Business Finland and Talent Turku – Boosting Business with International Talents in Turku Business Region. You can see open positions in Southwest Finland here: https://careerinsouthwestfinland.fi/job-opening/