Make no mistake, this is about dumping the market salaries and shedding worker rights. A lot of things going on in the EU at the moment are exactly that.
Exactly my thoughts, this candid remark spells it out in neon letters;
>Timo Ahopelto [...] estimates that Finland could hire 2000-3000 talented software developers immediately. He demands that the bureaucracy of immigration must be dismantled.
You can read this as "I want software developers but I don't want to pay them what they are worth". Globalism is the reduction of pay and workers rights by another name.
The talent shortage for companies like Supercell or Umbra is acute. They need for instance computer graphics experts whom Finnish universities haven't trained. The top talent more or less comes from around Demoscene and random enthusiasts and that talent pool is really limited. [0]
This does not mean there are no other forces at play when discussing the employment sector at large.
Edit: [0] I was really familiar with this specific sector up to a few years ago.
I realise this is an unpopulair opinion somehow but as someone who dreamt of the future since my first line of code begin 80s; working from anywhere via 'phone'. I started doing that with friends via BBS. I had a BBS system running at night when my parents did not need the phone and we would work with a few people on assembly, pascal and c. I continued that until (via internet) now and besides some travelling it always worked well. Why do other people insist on offices and closeness all the time? Sure I meet up with people every 1-2 months but we do efficient and cool production software and hardware with a distributed team all over the place. Is it that management wants to be overly controlling or something else? I have nothing against offices but like elsewhere in this thread: make an office in st pete's and put people wanting to work for you there. Did that a few times (200, 50, 40 and 80 people in 3 different countries in different cities) and am doing it again in two countries. This would solve this but, as said as well, this might be just something to violate worker rights instead of something else.
You're not thinking small enough: many, if not most, companies would need like 1-2 new people. The overhead of opening and managing a new office isn't worth it in those scenarios. Plus you're ignoring that most companies aren't ready for remote development: they don't have the infrastructure or the means for remote knowledge transfer, there's a fairly big cost both in money and culture to change that.
Finally you're ignoring that most companies aren't software houses. They operate in different industries and their IT/development departments rely on being close to their users, to these the effective cost of having remote employees is even higher than what I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
As an aside: My company allows for remote work but I just can't stand it; unless I really need to be home for something I'll always work from the office, where I can work and be social with my colleagues. We've considered moving to cheaper, nearby countries with fewer taxes (Germany most likely) and decided against it because I really don't want to have to work from home despite having a financial incentive to do so. Remote work isn't for everyone.
> Estonia, the southern neighbour of Finland, is much more nimble. In the baltic country employees can be hired for a trial period without bureaucracy. Official arrangements are required only after the decision to hire permanent employees is made
Isn't this the case for all companies in the EU? You just hire someone (or in reality their company) as a 'freelancer' or 'contractor'.
We at Toughbyte have recruited and relocated almost twenty mid and senior level developers to Finland for our clients in the last year, more info here: http://toughbyte.com/#recruitment
I can confirm that there is indeed a shortage of developers with the right skills. Salary levels is not the issue here.
I disagree with the point about bureaucracy in the article. Getting a residence permit once you have an offer is fairly straightforward and takes a few weeks, compared to some other countries in Europe (like Malta for example) where it has taken us months.
> I can confirm that there is indeed a shortage of developers with the right skills. Salary levels is not the issue here.
So you're saying with a straight face that if you doubled or quadrupled the salary on offer you still wouldn't find candidates? Are you looking for someone so specialized that only under 10 people in the entire world are able to fill it? Because otherwise it's just a matter of salaries not being enticing enough for people to work for your clients.
> developers with the right skills. Salary levels is not the issue here.
In a country that just saw several high-profile tech giants falter and cut thousands of highly-skilled and experienced developers, I find that really difficult to believe, sorry. What sort of skill is so in demand, that legions of C/C++ developers with tons of experience in embedded platforms cannot be retrained for? Are you building teams of brain surgeons?
More likely, demand does not match offer in terms of salary expectations, and employers don't want to adjust for one reason or another. This might fit your business model and that's fine, I'm not attacking you. These processes are not specific to Finland, it's globalization in action: producing a virtually unlimited supply of "reserve army of labor".
Not really, good developers become good from working, being involved and working together with more experienced developers. Sitting at home while employers moan about lack of skills without investing in employees is perhaps where the distinction lies.
Across Scandinavia there is a trend to outsource to eastern Europe to reduce costs, we can't then complain that developers in Scandinavia lack the competence required for the job. Employers have to invest in skills too. I would assume the same goes for Finland.
Bollocks. Read the whole article. They can't compete with GB or Germany in terms of salaries nothing to do with shortage of people.
They just want to be able to hire Indians,Pakistanis or whoever will be willing to work for the fraction of what even an unskilled person from a remote village in Romania would ask for.
This is not about SHORTAGE of people for the companies. Companies can hire entire teams overseas and especially developers do not need to be hired in local countries. The thing is people from even the poorest regions of EU do not want to relocate hence Finland is looking to repopulate itself with at least semi-skilled workforce outside of Europe.
This whole thing is disgusting. But Finland is free country and they are free to do whatever they think is the best for the country and its people.
I don't even know why the term shortage is even used in the context of potential employees. If potential employees are scarce then salaries will continue to rise until more people decide to pursue that job. Generally shortages happen if the government decides to implement price controls. If I want to buy bananas for $2.50 and bananas sell for $5.00 in the grocery store. It's not a shortage just because I can't afford it. If the government decides that bananas should cost $2.50 then producers will stop producing their goods because of a lack of revenue. This is a shortage.
Yes, and in the related links at the right side they even have another article titled "Cost of labour falls in Finland at the highest rate in the European Union".
Sometimes it's much better to hire a few talented people than an entire team. The young digital companies run by savvy technologists are attempting to play by the lean startup playbook.
Actually, a plenty of Russians may be interested, especially the ones living in Saint-Petersburg area. It takes only several hours by car and the train connection is very good too, so that they can easily visit parents, friends, etc. And salary in Finland are much higher comparing to Russia.
[+] [-] nippples|9 years ago|reply
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-technology-idUSKCN...
Make no mistake, this is about dumping the market salaries and shedding worker rights. A lot of things going on in the EU at the moment are exactly that.
[+] [-] retox|9 years ago|reply
>Timo Ahopelto [...] estimates that Finland could hire 2000-3000 talented software developers immediately. He demands that the bureaucracy of immigration must be dismantled.
You can read this as "I want software developers but I don't want to pay them what they are worth". Globalism is the reduction of pay and workers rights by another name.
[+] [-] fsloth|9 years ago|reply
This does not mean there are no other forces at play when discussing the employment sector at large.
Edit: [0] I was really familiar with this specific sector up to a few years ago.
[+] [-] riotdash|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tluyben2|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lagadu|9 years ago|reply
Finally you're ignoring that most companies aren't software houses. They operate in different industries and their IT/development departments rely on being close to their users, to these the effective cost of having remote employees is even higher than what I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
As an aside: My company allows for remote work but I just can't stand it; unless I really need to be home for something I'll always work from the office, where I can work and be social with my colleagues. We've considered moving to cheaper, nearby countries with fewer taxes (Germany most likely) and decided against it because I really don't want to have to work from home despite having a financial incentive to do so. Remote work isn't for everyone.
[+] [-] lucaspiller|9 years ago|reply
Isn't this the case for all companies in the EU? You just hire someone (or in reality their company) as a 'freelancer' or 'contractor'.
[+] [-] ex_amazon_sde|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] germanier|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccozan|9 years ago|reply
Any EU citizen wouldn't need anything, just go there, get the job, register with the authorities and find some housing.
[+] [-] olegp|9 years ago|reply
I can confirm that there is indeed a shortage of developers with the right skills. Salary levels is not the issue here.
I disagree with the point about bureaucracy in the article. Getting a residence permit once you have an offer is fairly straightforward and takes a few weeks, compared to some other countries in Europe (like Malta for example) where it has taken us months.
[+] [-] lagadu|9 years ago|reply
So you're saying with a straight face that if you doubled or quadrupled the salary on offer you still wouldn't find candidates? Are you looking for someone so specialized that only under 10 people in the entire world are able to fill it? Because otherwise it's just a matter of salaries not being enticing enough for people to work for your clients.
[+] [-] toyg|9 years ago|reply
In a country that just saw several high-profile tech giants falter and cut thousands of highly-skilled and experienced developers, I find that really difficult to believe, sorry. What sort of skill is so in demand, that legions of C/C++ developers with tons of experience in embedded platforms cannot be retrained for? Are you building teams of brain surgeons?
More likely, demand does not match offer in terms of salary expectations, and employers don't want to adjust for one reason or another. This might fit your business model and that's fine, I'm not attacking you. These processes are not specific to Finland, it's globalization in action: producing a virtually unlimited supply of "reserve army of labor".
[+] [-] forgottenacc56|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kagamine|9 years ago|reply
Across Scandinavia there is a trend to outsource to eastern Europe to reduce costs, we can't then complain that developers in Scandinavia lack the competence required for the job. Employers have to invest in skills too. I would assume the same goes for Finland.
[+] [-] barpet|9 years ago|reply
They just want to be able to hire Indians,Pakistanis or whoever will be willing to work for the fraction of what even an unskilled person from a remote village in Romania would ask for.
This is not about SHORTAGE of people for the companies. Companies can hire entire teams overseas and especially developers do not need to be hired in local countries. The thing is people from even the poorest regions of EU do not want to relocate hence Finland is looking to repopulate itself with at least semi-skilled workforce outside of Europe.
This whole thing is disgusting. But Finland is free country and they are free to do whatever they think is the best for the country and its people.
[+] [-] imtringued|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlbertoGP|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsloth|9 years ago|reply
Sometimes it's much better to hire a few talented people than an entire team. The young digital companies run by savvy technologists are attempting to play by the lean startup playbook.
[+] [-] zihotki|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mavdi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrtree|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] majewsky|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Avalaxy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Yaziyumaru|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] easytiger|9 years ago|reply
Well they just let in over 1 million new state aid dependants. Hardly a formula for growth.