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 Englis

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.