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That's great, because we have far more than that unemployed skilled developers in Finland. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-technology-idUSKCN0Z01D9 h

That's great, because we have far more than that unemployed skilled developers in Finland. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-technology-idUSKCN0Z01D9 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 10y ago
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.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I'm reading your post as "I'm no better than Indians, but due to being a Nordic blonde I think I deserve a higher salary." Globalization improves workers rights, increases pay, and reduces inequality. It's only people who were formerly at the top of the heap due solely to dumb luck that have anything to fear.
  - retox 10y ago
    If you can't afford to pay people the going rate open a shop in Bangalore.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      The "going rate" is whatever rate the lowest qualified candidate will accept. That candidate might be Indian. You actually want to get something well above the going rate simply because you are Nordic. History hasn't actually looked favorably upon people who insist on special privileges due to Nordic heritage.
      - retox 10y ago
        I'm not from Finland. Stop putting words in my mouth and trying to paint me as a racist, I don't appreciate it.
        yummyfajitas 10y ago
        I don't think you are racist. I think you have an equally evil bias based on a different accident of birth (location, rather than ethnicity of the parent). You haven't offered any reasoning to suggest otherwise.
        repomies6991 10y ago
        Well you sound like you are anti-immigration.
        jazzyk 10y ago
        Is applying precedence of taking care of the unemployed citizens of the country (who used to pay a lot of taxes when employed)- racist?
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        It's populist, which globalists despise. Racism is only the cover they use to mask that they're trying to drag down worker protections and wages to the lowest common denominator.
        talmand 10y ago
        Don't worry, "yer racist" is a typical response from a losing argument.
      - zyxyzy 10y ago
        Enough with this white guilt nonsense. Do yourself a favor and study Finland's history to learn all about that Nordic privilege. It's not all sunshine and rainbows.
  - 2AF3 10y ago
    >Globalization improves workers rights This isn't true for China. They use prison labor, they have no right to unionize, they have child labor, they don't follow their own minimum wage law, they don't have anything like a western country's workplace safety laws. Globalization does not increase wages for people in western countries, that's why these companies are keen on getting H1B visas and getting cheaper labor.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      A Chinese person who is allowed to work in Finland gets all these things. I also don't care about wages "for people in western countries". Why would I care about wages for one group of people to the exclusion of others?
      - 2AF3 10y ago
        I want the West to prosper because individual has more personal freedom here than in Communist China.
        turar 10y ago
        So, you're OK with unlimited immigration from India then? Otherwise your whole "personal freedom" excuse falls flat on its face.
        2AF3 10y ago
        unlimited immigration would depress wages and break the social net, so that is also not desirable.
  - hood_syntax 10y ago
    > increases pay Directly contradicted by your own assertion that someone in India will work for cheaper > improves workers rights Citation needed. The only one I can accept off hand is that it reduces inequality between western workers and those in countries with less opportunities. It certainly doesn't reduce the gap between CXOs and their employees
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      The Indian person works cheaper than Nordic people, but his own pay improves. The result of this has been rising incomes, primarily among the poorest. The "elephant graph" is the most important graph in the world of economics: https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iVkQuGtP3s24/v0/-1x-1.png https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iVkQuGtP3s2... Citation needed. The only one I can accept off hand is that it reduces inequality between western workers and those in countries with less opportunities. See the work of Branco Milanovic - the bulk of inequality in the world is across borders rather than within borders. His book is excellent: http://amzn.to/2dl3sVJ http://amzn.to/2dl3sVJ Worrying about inequality between CXOs and their employees is also a silly distraction by politicians. Inequality in the US is mainly between firms, not within them. Inequality within Google and within Walmart has not gone up much, it's inequality between Google and Walmart that has gone up. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/05/27/u-s-pay-inequality-is-growing-more-between-firms-than-within-them-paper-says/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/05/27/u-s-pay-inequality...
  - nippples 10y ago
    > What are sweatshops? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Inside-Apples-Chinese-sweatshop-factory-workers-paid-just-1-12-hour.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Ins...
  - whamlastxmas 10y ago
    People in Finland have a higher standard of living. That standard is higher because wages are higher. I don't think it's unreasonable to not want to lower the standard of living of your country.
  - blfr 10y ago
    Finns built a nice country (in quite unfriendly environment), why shouldn't they be the ones who enjoy the benefits? Globalization allows people to leech off social (and often real) capital generated by other people elsewhere. If Indians could do just as well as Finns, why aren't they, in India?
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      What makes "Indians" and "Finns" morally meaningful groups? Many individual Finns didn't make Finland nice. Quite a few just came along for the ride, and some were downright harmful. So it would be equally valid to say "Finns, except Sven, but including Sandeep built a nice country". (Assuming of course that Sven was one of the ones who didn't contribute much.) So we could equally well change the groups and get the same positive claims. Suppose I were to say "whites built a nice suburb, why shouldn't they be the ones who enjoy the benefits" (with regards to, say, an all-white suburb that they want to keep blacks out of), what principled objection would you make to this claim?
      - blfr 10y ago
        What makes Finns a morally meaningful group here is what makes family a morally meaningful group: blood ties and inheritance. It's not unfair that people inherit after their ancestors, whether it's a stamp collection, height, or a country. I don't have an objection to people maintaining their own communities, closed or not. I believe in freedom of association. I'm not an American either so US taboos around race don't hold much sway over my opinions.
        yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Ok, fair enough. I guess that's our point of disagreement; I only believe in individual rights, and don't view any group as being special.
        blfr 10y ago
        You don't see your family as special for example? Just another random collection of individuals?
fsloth 10y ago
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.
- cheriot 10y ago
  Is this not something that can be learned by an experience programmer? Anything that can be taught in a couple semesters at university can be learned faster by a professional learning full time. I'll make this next statement more about the US than Finland because that's what I'm familiar with. Any company complaining about a talent shortage that doesn't have training programs has no business demanding laws change. Be cheap or lazy, but don't be both.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    My specific example - sourcing "real time graphics experts"- was a bit obscure. It's a niche. The first problem arranging training would be to first figure out how to train and by whom. A learn-by-doing projects of increasing complexity from raytracers and scheme interpreters to a real time 3D engine and shader languages would probably do part of the trick. Then add 3D modeling and some drawing courses to make sure they appreciate the art as well. Doable in two years, full time - yeah sure. But what are the economic tradeoffs? The personnel to arrange all of this is available in Helsinki area. The problem, I think, is that the quantity of people sought is so small that it would be harder to arrange all of this properly than just headhunt for them around the world. It would be awesome, though. There are trainings for people like SAP experts. The curriculum is fixed and the problem domain fantastically constrained. In this case it's fairly easy to retrain for sought out skills - especially if the number of new experts is counted in the hundreds. I have to strain once more that my example was obscure and for a specific, fairly small niche. I have no idea where the thousands of missing specialists are needed. Probably for usual backend/frontend development, would be my guess.
- 10y ago
riotdash 10y ago
BS. Unemployed yes, skilled not even close. The ex-Nokia people with their Symbian skills are not useful for the modern mobile/web dev market. Almost every single IT-company in Finland at the moment is suffering from lack of developers.

retox 10y ago

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.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I'm reading your post as "I'm no better than Indians, but due to being a Nordic blonde I think I deserve a higher salary." Globalization improves workers rights, increases pay, and reduces inequality. It's only people who were formerly at the top of the heap due solely to dumb luck that have anything to fear.
- retox 10y ago
  If you can't afford to pay people the going rate open a shop in Bangalore.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    The "going rate" is whatever rate the lowest qualified candidate will accept. That candidate might be Indian. You actually want to get something well above the going rate simply because you are Nordic. History hasn't actually looked favorably upon people who insist on special privileges due to Nordic heritage.
    - retox 10y ago
      I'm not from Finland. Stop putting words in my mouth and trying to paint me as a racist, I don't appreciate it.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        I don't think you are racist. I think you have an equally evil bias based on a different accident of birth (location, rather than ethnicity of the parent). You haven't offered any reasoning to suggest otherwise.
      - repomies6991 10y ago
        Well you sound like you are anti-immigration.
        jazzyk 10y ago
        Is applying precedence of taking care of the unemployed citizens of the country (who used to pay a lot of taxes when employed)- racist?
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        It's populist, which globalists despise. Racism is only the cover they use to mask that they're trying to drag down worker protections and wages to the lowest common denominator.
      - talmand 10y ago
        Don't worry, "yer racist" is a typical response from a losing argument.
    - zyxyzy 10y ago
      Enough with this white guilt nonsense. Do yourself a favor and study Finland's history to learn all about that Nordic privilege. It's not all sunshine and rainbows.
- 2AF3 10y ago
  >Globalization improves workers rights This isn't true for China. They use prison labor, they have no right to unionize, they have child labor, they don't follow their own minimum wage law, they don't have anything like a western country's workplace safety laws. Globalization does not increase wages for people in western countries, that's why these companies are keen on getting H1B visas and getting cheaper labor.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    A Chinese person who is allowed to work in Finland gets all these things. I also don't care about wages "for people in western countries". Why would I care about wages for one group of people to the exclusion of others?
    - 2AF3 10y ago
      I want the West to prosper because individual has more personal freedom here than in Communist China.
      - turar 10y ago
        So, you're OK with unlimited immigration from India then? Otherwise your whole "personal freedom" excuse falls flat on its face.
        2AF3 10y ago
        unlimited immigration would depress wages and break the social net, so that is also not desirable.
- hood_syntax 10y ago
  > increases pay Directly contradicted by your own assertion that someone in India will work for cheaper > improves workers rights Citation needed. The only one I can accept off hand is that it reduces inequality between western workers and those in countries with less opportunities. It certainly doesn't reduce the gap between CXOs and their employees
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    The Indian person works cheaper than Nordic people, but his own pay improves. The result of this has been rising incomes, primarily among the poorest. The "elephant graph" is the most important graph in the world of economics: https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iVkQuGtP3s24/v0/-1x-1.png https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iVkQuGtP3s2... Citation needed. The only one I can accept off hand is that it reduces inequality between western workers and those in countries with less opportunities. See the work of Branco Milanovic - the bulk of inequality in the world is across borders rather than within borders. His book is excellent: http://amzn.to/2dl3sVJ http://amzn.to/2dl3sVJ Worrying about inequality between CXOs and their employees is also a silly distraction by politicians. Inequality in the US is mainly between firms, not within them. Inequality within Google and within Walmart has not gone up much, it's inequality between Google and Walmart that has gone up. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/05/27/u-s-pay-inequality-is-growing-more-between-firms-than-within-them-paper-says/ http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/05/27/u-s-pay-inequality...
- nippples 10y ago
  > What are sweatshops? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Inside-Apples-Chinese-sweatshop-factory-workers-paid-just-1-12-hour.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Ins...
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  People in Finland have a higher standard of living. That standard is higher because wages are higher. I don't think it's unreasonable to not want to lower the standard of living of your country.
- blfr 10y ago
  Finns built a nice country (in quite unfriendly environment), why shouldn't they be the ones who enjoy the benefits? Globalization allows people to leech off social (and often real) capital generated by other people elsewhere. If Indians could do just as well as Finns, why aren't they, in India?
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    What makes "Indians" and "Finns" morally meaningful groups? Many individual Finns didn't make Finland nice. Quite a few just came along for the ride, and some were downright harmful. So it would be equally valid to say "Finns, except Sven, but including Sandeep built a nice country". (Assuming of course that Sven was one of the ones who didn't contribute much.) So we could equally well change the groups and get the same positive claims. Suppose I were to say "whites built a nice suburb, why shouldn't they be the ones who enjoy the benefits" (with regards to, say, an all-white suburb that they want to keep blacks out of), what principled objection would you make to this claim?
    - blfr 10y ago
      What makes Finns a morally meaningful group here is what makes family a morally meaningful group: blood ties and inheritance. It's not unfair that people inherit after their ancestors, whether it's a stamp collection, height, or a country. I don't have an objection to people maintaining their own communities, closed or not. I believe in freedom of association. I'm not an American either so US taboos around race don't hold much sway over my opinions.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Ok, fair enough. I guess that's our point of disagreement; I only believe in individual rights, and don't view any group as being special.
        blfr 10y ago
        You don't see your family as special for example? Just another random collection of individuals?

fsloth 10y ago

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.

cheriot 10y ago
Is this not something that can be learned by an experience programmer? Anything that can be taught in a couple semesters at university can be learned faster by a professional learning full time. I'll make this next statement more about the US than Finland because that's what I'm familiar with. Any company complaining about a talent shortage that doesn't have training programs has no business demanding laws change. Be cheap or lazy, but don't be both.
- fsloth 10y ago
  My specific example - sourcing "real time graphics experts"- was a bit obscure. It's a niche. The first problem arranging training would be to first figure out how to train and by whom. A learn-by-doing projects of increasing complexity from raytracers and scheme interpreters to a real time 3D engine and shader languages would probably do part of the trick. Then add 3D modeling and some drawing courses to make sure they appreciate the art as well. Doable in two years, full time - yeah sure. But what are the economic tradeoffs? The personnel to arrange all of this is available in Helsinki area. The problem, I think, is that the quantity of people sought is so small that it would be harder to arrange all of this properly than just headhunt for them around the world. It would be awesome, though. There are trainings for people like SAP experts. The curriculum is fixed and the problem domain fantastically constrained. In this case it's fairly easy to retrain for sought out skills - especially if the number of new experts is counted in the hundreds. I have to strain once more that my example was obscure and for a specific, fairly small niche. I have no idea where the thousands of missing specialists are needed. Probably for usual backend/frontend development, would be my guess.
10y ago

riotdash 10y ago

BS. Unemployed yes, skilled not even close. The ex-Nokia people with their Symbian skills are not useful for the modern mobile/web dev market. Almost every single IT-company in Finland at the moment is suffering from lack of developers.