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Finland is great at home growing engineering talent, hence the crazy high amount of software startups per capita. However, Finland also is the poorest of the n

Finland is great at home growing engineering talent, hence the crazy high amount of software startups per capita. However, Finland also is the poorest of the nordic countries, with the lowest salaries comparatively—and yet similarly high cost of living and extremely high taxes. With free movement of talent in the EU, brain drain is a problem. And it’s basically impossible to import talent if your value proposition is: “come for the low salaries, stay for the high taxes” English isn’t the issue. If Helsinki companies paid like those in Zurich and had similarly low taxes, there would be no problem retaining or importing talent. For people who didn’t grow up in the country and benefit from the social welfare system at all, why would they want to come from outside and suddenly start paying for it?

camillomiller 5y ago
Same is true for Italy. Comparable software jobs in Berlin - not the richest of cities — are easily 2x to 4x compared to Milan, with costs of living that are lower or similar.
AussieWog93 5y ago
>For people who didn’t grow up in the country and benefit from the social welfare system at all, why would they want to come from outside and suddenly start paying for it? From what I understand, Finland has the best education system on Earth, bar none. While migrants themselves might not benefit from this themselves, their children certainly will.
- pembrook 5y ago
  True of course for the average Finnish citizen. However, if you’re a highly paid white collar worker, you can afford to put your kids in good schools no matter where you’re living.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    That's simply untrue. Many schools that present themselves as "good" or "elite" are some of the most fucked up places you could ever visit. I went to a private school from years 7-10 and could never put anyone I loved our cared about in that position.
  - krageon 5y ago
    Only very few schools on earth are good and you basically have no access to them as someone working in a tax haven.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > Finland has the best education system on Earth, bar none I don't think there's a single university in Finland in even the top 100 is there?
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    The university rankings one sees are massively, massively skewed by the US & the UK, because they have always written in English, and set up most of the popular (i.e. English speaking) journals. I dug into these rankings years ago, and found them very, very unconvincing. The OECD rankings (where Finland does really well) tend to be much more robust.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > The university rankings one sees are massively, massively skewed by the US & the UK, because they have always written in English, and set up most of the popular (i.e. English speaking) journals. Doesn't seem to be a problem for the Chinese or Singaporeans?
      - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        Under which ranking? Like, it would be surprising if China (1.1bn people) wasn't doing reasonably well (though most of their growth has occurred since they started publishing in English language journals). Singapore has one university, right? That, along with the 8mn driven people they have along with former english colonialism would seem to be germane to my points above.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        What about Switzerland? Comparable population more or less, outside of the anglosphere. Three universities in the QS top 100. Really difficult to argue 'best bar none' I think.
        disgruntledphd2 5y ago
raverbashing 5y ago
"Brain Drain" in Finland: unlikely. Comparing it with Italy is disproportional (as attested by Glassdoor) They might be lower-ish, but not low. And it attracts talent. (though the weather is a push factor more likely)
- georgeecollins 5y ago
  I work with a tech company in Helsinki. They seem to attract talent from various parts of Europe just fine, and probably pay reasonably well. They have a very international outlook on business and a great history of developing apps for mobile devices.
stevekemp 5y ago
I moved to Helsinki, and I met a lot of other immigrants taking language-courses, etc. In almost all cases the top three reasons for somebody moving to Finland were: 1. To study. So they expect to leave after "a while". 2. Because they had a Finnish spouse/lover. 3. Refuges of various nations. I know that some people do move here for jobs, but I can't recall actually having met anybody who has done so. Working in English, in IT, is very easy. Paying taxes, and using banks online, etc, in English is also pretty good. I've managed to buy a couple of properties, get my brain scanned, and done other things almost entirely in English. But that said when you're picking your child up from daycare, and all the other parents are speaking Finnish, and your child is too? Well you'll have an easier time if you can learn some too..
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > I know that some people do move here for jobs, but I can't recall actually having met anybody who has done so. So you moved here somewhat recently, i.e. in the last decade? Some fifteen years ago lots of people moved here to work at Nokia.
  - stevekemp 5y ago
    Yes, I moved about six years ago.
long_time_gone 5y ago
==If Helsinki companies paid like those in Zurich and had similarly low taxes, there would be no problem retaining or importing talent.== Isn't Switzerland famously difficult to immigrate to?
- ThePadawan 5y ago
  They'll happily have you as a (non-voting but tax paying) foreign resident. The difficult(-ish) part is becoming a Swiss national. (I am a Foreign Resident living in Zurich for more than 10 years)
  - wreath 5y ago
    Still better than Germany where you are a high tax paying and non-voting immigrant resident (not even local elections if you are not from EU)
    - ThePadawan 5y ago
      > (not even local elections if you are not from EU) That's more progressive than Switzerland (but it varies by canton). No Swiss passport? No vote for you.
    - universa1 5y ago
      Usually if you have payed taxes for 5 years you can get the German citizenship with all it's benefits, iirc.
      - wreath 5y ago
        You dont get the German citizenship but you become eligible to apply for one. Thats it.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  Not if you are qualified and capable of contributing to society.
jltsiren 5y ago
"Poorest of the Nordic countries" is a bit misleading, as the other Nordic countries set the bar very high. Standard of living in Finland is higher than in the UK, which didn't have any trouble attracting skilled immigrants before Brexit. From what I have heard, the usual complaints are about immigration bureaucracy, language, difficulty of making friends, climate, and darkness. The real challenge in retaining immigrants comes in the first year without a proper winter, when you have to face six months of November.
- OJFord 5y ago
  But the rest of that sentence was: > with the lowest salaries comparatively—and yet similarly high cost of living and extremely high taxes. i.e. why would you pick it over the others, you don't make your choice of economic migration to be fairest to the potential destinations, 'the other Nordic countries set the bar very high' just means 'the other Nordic countries are better choices'.
  - jltsiren 5y ago
    Immigrants usually move for specific reasons. The choice is more often between moving to Finland and not moving to Finland than between moving to Finland and moving to Sweden.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      I specifically said economic migration, which is by definition about improving standard of living rather than having a particular draw to a specific country. Of course other factors may narrow it down - 'I like Nordic countries', or particularly 'somewhere in the EU', but not typically 'Finland or bust'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_migration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_migration
      - jltsiren 5y ago
        People usually mean low-skilled immigrants when they talk about economic migration. High-skilled immigrants are more likely to choose a particular company or even a specific job opportunity than a specific country. They don't move to a country because they want to live there but because many of the best opportunities for a person with their particular skills and networks happen to be there. They don't choose between country A and country B when they don't have any particular reason to move, but between taking a specific opportunity in country A and not taking the opportunity.
fulafel 5y ago
Re comparison between Helsinki and other nordic cities, I was curious and looked up some numbers: For Helsinki I think the closest peer is Stockholm. Here are comparisons of CoL and PPP GDP between Helsinki/stockholm and finland/sweden (spoiler: helsinki wins on CoL, sweden as a whole has higher average ppp gdp, probably accounted by higher urbanization on the country level). Both differences are small. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Sweden&city1=Stockholm&country2=Finland&city2=Helsinki https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=FI-SE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...
pipodeclown 5y ago
Taxes aren't that high right? 5% above the oecd average. But indeed for an expat, the value proposition isn't really there when you can live in similar countries with higher wages.
krageon 5y ago
Every well-educated person (i.e. desirable for immigration) I've ever met has found the Scandinavian countries attractive as a target. The social safety nets are very good, public infrastructure is great and child support is also uniquely present (e.g. free schooling). These are things that come with high taxes and if someone passed even high school they understand this. An important aside is that I don't really associate with the FAANG crowd, because I don't agree with them on ideological grounds and because I don't work for such a company. Perhaps among those people taxes seem more evil, especially given the fact that they are okay with working for companies that are not exactly doing good for society.
- pembrook 5y ago
  I’m not arguing the social safety net is bad, but the issue is, it ends up creating weird incentives. For example, no successful business owner on earth who isn’t already there, would ever choose to re-locate to the nordics. That’s not great. Also, by creating a low risk environment, instead of freeing people to take more career risks, it ironically trains people to take even less risk. This results in reduced variance in outcomes. A generally homogenous, no growth country. No matter if you think FAANG is evil, they’re going to continue dominating European lives unless you have talent and capital taking risk to innovate alternatives, and build your vision of a better world. Unfortunately, in shrinking the possible variance in outcomes, the nordics become the best place on earth to be below-average, with exceptional success due to risk taking being penalized. It’s like begging your best talent to leave. Not everybody will, but some do. So you have no top talent immigrating, and some top talent leaving every year. Over time you can see how that’s a dangerous trend.
  - kirsebaer 5y ago
    I'm in Oslo now. There is an active start-up scene here. I have lots of Norwegian friends who have started businesses or non-profits. I know of people who started a tech business in SV and then moved back home to Norway for the quality of life. The safety-net gives you the ability to take risks, without risking your healthcare or your children's future. There is very little poverty and crime here, compared to SF. Public services work. If you go to a shop or restaurant, it feels good knowing that the people working there are making a living wage with 5 weeks vacation, etc. Norway has more $-millionaires per capita than the US: https://youtu.be/A9UmdY0E8hU https://youtu.be/A9UmdY0E8hU
908B64B197 5y ago
> And it’s basically impossible to import talent if your value proposition is: “come for the low salaries, stay for the high taxes” Just give tax breaks to desirable professions.
thow-01187 5y ago
There's another problem with Finland - it's just too geographically isolated. It's de-facto an island. To make matters worse, it's also a monotonous forested flatland. Not much of historical sites to speak of either. Living in southern Norway or Sweden, it's still doable to go on a car trip, visiting Germany, Alsace, Netherlands or even Austria or Czech republic; not to mention their own fjords and mountain ranges. From Finland, one always has to fly to go just about anywhere interesting
- moogly 5y ago
  It's pretty easy and cheap to bring your car from Helsinki or Turku to Stockholm via ferry. It's just a one-day trip.

camillomiller 5y ago

Same is true for Italy. Comparable software jobs in Berlin - not the richest of cities — are easily 2x to 4x compared to Milan, with costs of living that are lower or similar.

AussieWog93 5y ago

>For people who didn’t grow up in the country and benefit from the social welfare system at all, why would they want to come from outside and suddenly start paying for it? From what I understand, Finland has the best education system on Earth, bar none. While migrants themselves might not benefit from this themselves, their children certainly will.

pembrook 5y ago
True of course for the average Finnish citizen. However, if you’re a highly paid white collar worker, you can afford to put your kids in good schools no matter where you’re living.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  That's simply untrue. Many schools that present themselves as "good" or "elite" are some of the most fucked up places you could ever visit. I went to a private school from years 7-10 and could never put anyone I loved our cared about in that position.
- krageon 5y ago
  Only very few schools on earth are good and you basically have no access to them as someone working in a tax haven.
chrisseaton 5y ago
> Finland has the best education system on Earth, bar none I don't think there's a single university in Finland in even the top 100 is there?
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  The university rankings one sees are massively, massively skewed by the US & the UK, because they have always written in English, and set up most of the popular (i.e. English speaking) journals. I dug into these rankings years ago, and found them very, very unconvincing. The OECD rankings (where Finland does really well) tend to be much more robust.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > The university rankings one sees are massively, massively skewed by the US & the UK, because they have always written in English, and set up most of the popular (i.e. English speaking) journals. Doesn't seem to be a problem for the Chinese or Singaporeans?
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      Under which ranking? Like, it would be surprising if China (1.1bn people) wasn't doing reasonably well (though most of their growth has occurred since they started publishing in English language journals). Singapore has one university, right? That, along with the 8mn driven people they have along with former english colonialism would seem to be germane to my points above.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        What about Switzerland? Comparable population more or less, outside of the anglosphere. Three universities in the QS top 100. Really difficult to argue 'best bar none' I think.
        disgruntledphd2 5y ago

raverbashing 5y ago

"Brain Drain" in Finland: unlikely. Comparing it with Italy is disproportional (as attested by Glassdoor) They might be lower-ish, but not low. And it attracts talent. (though the weather is a push factor more likely)

georgeecollins 5y ago
I work with a tech company in Helsinki. They seem to attract talent from various parts of Europe just fine, and probably pay reasonably well. They have a very international outlook on business and a great history of developing apps for mobile devices.

stevekemp 5y ago

I moved to Helsinki, and I met a lot of other immigrants taking language-courses, etc. In almost all cases the top three reasons for somebody moving to Finland were: 1. To study. So they expect to leave after "a while". 2. Because they had a Finnish spouse/lover. 3. Refuges of various nations. I know that some people do move here for jobs, but I can't recall actually having met anybody who has done so. Working in English, in IT, is very easy. Paying taxes, and using banks online, etc, in English is also pretty good. I've managed to buy a couple of properties, get my brain scanned, and done other things almost entirely in English. But that said when you're picking your child up from daycare, and all the other parents are speaking Finnish, and your child is too? Well you'll have an easier time if you can learn some too..

CRConrad 5y ago
> I know that some people do move here for jobs, but I can't recall actually having met anybody who has done so. So you moved here somewhat recently, i.e. in the last decade? Some fifteen years ago lots of people moved here to work at Nokia.
- stevekemp 5y ago
  Yes, I moved about six years ago.

long_time_gone 5y ago

==If Helsinki companies paid like those in Zurich and had similarly low taxes, there would be no problem retaining or importing talent.== Isn't Switzerland famously difficult to immigrate to?

ThePadawan 5y ago
They'll happily have you as a (non-voting but tax paying) foreign resident. The difficult(-ish) part is becoming a Swiss national. (I am a Foreign Resident living in Zurich for more than 10 years)
- wreath 5y ago
  Still better than Germany where you are a high tax paying and non-voting immigrant resident (not even local elections if you are not from EU)
  - ThePadawan 5y ago
    > (not even local elections if you are not from EU) That's more progressive than Switzerland (but it varies by canton). No Swiss passport? No vote for you.
  - universa1 5y ago
    Usually if you have payed taxes for 5 years you can get the German citizenship with all it's benefits, iirc.
    - wreath 5y ago
      You dont get the German citizenship but you become eligible to apply for one. Thats it.
908B64B197 5y ago
Not if you are qualified and capable of contributing to society.

jltsiren 5y ago

"Poorest of the Nordic countries" is a bit misleading, as the other Nordic countries set the bar very high. Standard of living in Finland is higher than in the UK, which didn't have any trouble attracting skilled immigrants before Brexit. From what I have heard, the usual complaints are about immigration bureaucracy, language, difficulty of making friends, climate, and darkness. The real challenge in retaining immigrants comes in the first year without a proper winter, when you have to face six months of November.

OJFord 5y ago
But the rest of that sentence was: > with the lowest salaries comparatively—and yet similarly high cost of living and extremely high taxes. i.e. why would you pick it over the others, you don't make your choice of economic migration to be fairest to the potential destinations, 'the other Nordic countries set the bar very high' just means 'the other Nordic countries are better choices'.
- jltsiren 5y ago
  Immigrants usually move for specific reasons. The choice is more often between moving to Finland and not moving to Finland than between moving to Finland and moving to Sweden.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I specifically said economic migration, which is by definition about improving standard of living rather than having a particular draw to a specific country. Of course other factors may narrow it down - 'I like Nordic countries', or particularly 'somewhere in the EU', but not typically 'Finland or bust'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_migration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_migration
    - jltsiren 5y ago
      People usually mean low-skilled immigrants when they talk about economic migration. High-skilled immigrants are more likely to choose a particular company or even a specific job opportunity than a specific country. They don't move to a country because they want to live there but because many of the best opportunities for a person with their particular skills and networks happen to be there. They don't choose between country A and country B when they don't have any particular reason to move, but between taking a specific opportunity in country A and not taking the opportunity.

fulafel 5y ago

Re comparison between Helsinki and other nordic cities, I was curious and looked up some numbers: For Helsinki I think the closest peer is Stockholm. Here are comparisons of CoL and PPP GDP between Helsinki/stockholm and finland/sweden (spoiler: helsinki wins on CoL, sweden as a whole has higher average ppp gdp, probably accounted by higher urbanization on the country level). Both differences are small. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Sweden&city1=Stockholm&country2=Finland&city2=Helsinki https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=FI-SE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...

pipodeclown 5y ago

Taxes aren't that high right? 5% above the oecd average. But indeed for an expat, the value proposition isn't really there when you can live in similar countries with higher wages.

krageon 5y ago

Every well-educated person (i.e. desirable for immigration) I've ever met has found the Scandinavian countries attractive as a target. The social safety nets are very good, public infrastructure is great and child support is also uniquely present (e.g. free schooling). These are things that come with high taxes and if someone passed even high school they understand this. An important aside is that I don't really associate with the FAANG crowd, because I don't agree with them on ideological grounds and because I don't work for such a company. Perhaps among those people taxes seem more evil, especially given the fact that they are okay with working for companies that are not exactly doing good for society.

pembrook 5y ago
I’m not arguing the social safety net is bad, but the issue is, it ends up creating weird incentives. For example, no successful business owner on earth who isn’t already there, would ever choose to re-locate to the nordics. That’s not great. Also, by creating a low risk environment, instead of freeing people to take more career risks, it ironically trains people to take even less risk. This results in reduced variance in outcomes. A generally homogenous, no growth country. No matter if you think FAANG is evil, they’re going to continue dominating European lives unless you have talent and capital taking risk to innovate alternatives, and build your vision of a better world. Unfortunately, in shrinking the possible variance in outcomes, the nordics become the best place on earth to be below-average, with exceptional success due to risk taking being penalized. It’s like begging your best talent to leave. Not everybody will, but some do. So you have no top talent immigrating, and some top talent leaving every year. Over time you can see how that’s a dangerous trend.
- kirsebaer 5y ago
  I'm in Oslo now. There is an active start-up scene here. I have lots of Norwegian friends who have started businesses or non-profits. I know of people who started a tech business in SV and then moved back home to Norway for the quality of life. The safety-net gives you the ability to take risks, without risking your healthcare or your children's future. There is very little poverty and crime here, compared to SF. Public services work. If you go to a shop or restaurant, it feels good knowing that the people working there are making a living wage with 5 weeks vacation, etc. Norway has more $-millionaires per capita than the US: https://youtu.be/A9UmdY0E8hU https://youtu.be/A9UmdY0E8hU

908B64B197 5y ago

> And it’s basically impossible to import talent if your value proposition is: “come for the low salaries, stay for the high taxes” Just give tax breaks to desirable professions.

thow-01187 5y ago

There's another problem with Finland - it's just too geographically isolated. It's de-facto an island. To make matters worse, it's also a monotonous forested flatland. Not much of historical sites to speak of either. Living in southern Norway or Sweden, it's still doable to go on a car trip, visiting Germany, Alsace, Netherlands or even Austria or Czech republic; not to mention their own fjords and mountain ranges. From Finland, one always has to fly to go just about anywhere interesting

moogly 5y ago
It's pretty easy and cheap to bring your car from Helsinki or Turku to Stockholm via ferry. It's just a one-day trip.