4 ms·

Current Oulu resident here, working in the IT sector as well. Less than ten years ago, atmosphere was quite pessimistic when Nokia was laying off lot of people,

Current Oulu resident here, working in the IT sector as well. Less than ten years ago, atmosphere was quite pessimistic when Nokia was laying off lot of people, which also heavily affected also multiple sub-contractor companies. However, everything has gone lot better than anyone expected and currently there are more IT sector employees in Oulu than in the golden ages of Nokia.

ptah 7y ago
what would you credit for this better than expected outcome?
- atupis 7y ago
  Not living Oulu but living Finland. Oulu is pretty remote even in Finland's standards so people don't move out so easily. That created a situation where startups had suddenly lots of highly skilled engineers to hire cheaply and that created a boom in the town.
- kepponen 7y ago
  There are various reasons in my opinion. People, who were laid off from Nokia, were highly educated and many of them were well-respected in their fields so it is quite easy to lure some new companies to Oulu (Mediatek, Nordic Semiconductor etc.) In addition, people were also used to make business internationally so it was lot easier to start new companies with that kind of experience.
shusson 7y ago
In general, do you need to speak Finnish to work in Oulu?
- Maxion 7y ago
  Pretty much yes. While you can find tech companies that hire exclusively English speakers A LOT of companies require fluent Finnish, even when the internal language is Finnish. Finland is still in many ways a very conservative society.
  - shusson 7y ago
    well there goes a dream, Finnish is also ridiculously hard to learn, coming from English.
    - stevekemp 7y ago
      If you're a developer/coder/sysadmin you can find companies that will hire you speaking only English. This is very common, though much more so in Helsinki. In everyday life speaking Finnish will be beneficial, for obvious reasons. I've been here a few years now, having moved from Scotland. Using English I've been able to get my brain scanned, buy a couple of flats, deal with daycare (I became a parent after moving here), and most bureaucracy. Finnish is indeed hard to learn, but even getting the basics down will make your life easier and better.
    - sha666sum 7y ago
      Almost everyone in Finland speaks either good or fluent English. Movies and TV shows aren't dubbed apart from some animated content, usually for kids. Domestic media can only create so much content for a population of 5 million, so the population is constantly subjected to English language media. There's also regions along the coast where a sizable portion, or even the majority of people, are Swedish speaking[1] (and bilingual to various degrees). Swedish is an official language, and if you want to be a pain in the ass to the 95% of the population that doesn't speak Swedish apart from the mandatory school courses, you are entitled by law to get service in Swedish. Working only in English is obviously harder, but if you want to live here, don't let that stop you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_Finn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_Finn
  - tekkk 7y ago
    I don't think that's true, at least for Helsinki. Plenty of companies here who hire non-Finnish speakers. I think there's half a dozen Indians in the office where I'm working at right now. Not an issue. I think country-side can be conservative, yes, but Finland is quite progressive in many respects. In immigration there are some heated opinions but I think that's true for many countries.
- kepponen 7y ago
  If you are working in IT other technology sector, you don't have to speak Finnish, but it is definetely beneficial to have some skills in local language. In normal life there might be situations where Finnish is necessary even though most Finns speak English quite well, at least younger generations.
- pasiaj 7y ago
  I am an Oulu resident. It is very, VERY common in both IT and education sectors to hire people who speak no Finnish. I've personally hired half-a-dozen English-speakers who do not speak any Finnish. Our company (mobile gaming) consists of ~10% non-Finnish speakers, all of whom are very happy here. Almost ALL Finns (incl. our cleaning lady) speak good English. My previous company (hardware) had roughly ~10% of non-Finnish speakers as well. Both universities here have hundreds of non-Finnish speakers. The game education program in Oulu University of Applied Sciences (Oulu GameLAB) is being run by (a super smart) Romanian who does not speak a word of Finnish. The local Nokia office has hundreds of people from abroad. There's an active Chinese community of couple of hundred people, most of whom do not speak Finnish.
raxxorrax 7y ago
I think the current Nokia phones are one of the best on the market. Clean Android distribution, solid hardware. Maybe not as successful as before, but certainly competitive at least.
- garaetjjte 7y ago
  Current "Nokia" phones are made by different company, HMD Global.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    Maybe, they are still pretty good.
  - soylentcola 7y ago
    I believe this new company is mostly made up of Nokia's mobile phone division that was bought back from Microsoft. They're still based in Finland as well, but I'm not sure how the various businesses are arranged.

ptah 7y ago

what would you credit for this better than expected outcome?

atupis 7y ago
Not living Oulu but living Finland. Oulu is pretty remote even in Finland's standards so people don't move out so easily. That created a situation where startups had suddenly lots of highly skilled engineers to hire cheaply and that created a boom in the town.
kepponen 7y ago
There are various reasons in my opinion. People, who were laid off from Nokia, were highly educated and many of them were well-respected in their fields so it is quite easy to lure some new companies to Oulu (Mediatek, Nordic Semiconductor etc.) In addition, people were also used to make business internationally so it was lot easier to start new companies with that kind of experience.

shusson 7y ago

In general, do you need to speak Finnish to work in Oulu?

Maxion 7y ago
Pretty much yes. While you can find tech companies that hire exclusively English speakers A LOT of companies require fluent Finnish, even when the internal language is Finnish. Finland is still in many ways a very conservative society.
- shusson 7y ago
  well there goes a dream, Finnish is also ridiculously hard to learn, coming from English.
  - stevekemp 7y ago
    If you're a developer/coder/sysadmin you can find companies that will hire you speaking only English. This is very common, though much more so in Helsinki. In everyday life speaking Finnish will be beneficial, for obvious reasons. I've been here a few years now, having moved from Scotland. Using English I've been able to get my brain scanned, buy a couple of flats, deal with daycare (I became a parent after moving here), and most bureaucracy. Finnish is indeed hard to learn, but even getting the basics down will make your life easier and better.
  - sha666sum 7y ago
    Almost everyone in Finland speaks either good or fluent English. Movies and TV shows aren't dubbed apart from some animated content, usually for kids. Domestic media can only create so much content for a population of 5 million, so the population is constantly subjected to English language media. There's also regions along the coast where a sizable portion, or even the majority of people, are Swedish speaking[1] (and bilingual to various degrees). Swedish is an official language, and if you want to be a pain in the ass to the 95% of the population that doesn't speak Swedish apart from the mandatory school courses, you are entitled by law to get service in Swedish. Working only in English is obviously harder, but if you want to live here, don't let that stop you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_Finn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_Finn
- tekkk 7y ago
  I don't think that's true, at least for Helsinki. Plenty of companies here who hire non-Finnish speakers. I think there's half a dozen Indians in the office where I'm working at right now. Not an issue. I think country-side can be conservative, yes, but Finland is quite progressive in many respects. In immigration there are some heated opinions but I think that's true for many countries.
kepponen 7y ago
If you are working in IT other technology sector, you don't have to speak Finnish, but it is definetely beneficial to have some skills in local language. In normal life there might be situations where Finnish is necessary even though most Finns speak English quite well, at least younger generations.
pasiaj 7y ago
I am an Oulu resident. It is very, VERY common in both IT and education sectors to hire people who speak no Finnish. I've personally hired half-a-dozen English-speakers who do not speak any Finnish. Our company (mobile gaming) consists of ~10% non-Finnish speakers, all of whom are very happy here. Almost ALL Finns (incl. our cleaning lady) speak good English. My previous company (hardware) had roughly ~10% of non-Finnish speakers as well. Both universities here have hundreds of non-Finnish speakers. The game education program in Oulu University of Applied Sciences (Oulu GameLAB) is being run by (a super smart) Romanian who does not speak a word of Finnish. The local Nokia office has hundreds of people from abroad. There's an active Chinese community of couple of hundred people, most of whom do not speak Finnish.

raxxorrax 7y ago

I think the current Nokia phones are one of the best on the market. Clean Android distribution, solid hardware. Maybe not as successful as before, but certainly competitive at least.

garaetjjte 7y ago
Current "Nokia" phones are made by different company, HMD Global.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Maybe, they are still pretty good.
- soylentcola 7y ago
  I believe this new company is mostly made up of Nokia's mobile phone division that was bought back from Microsoft. They're still based in Finland as well, but I'm not sure how the various businesses are arranged.