“In Santiago, we had two cars. Here, everything is less than a quarter of an hour away on foot and our daughters go to the neighborhood school. » With a grizzled beard, in a T-shirt despite the icy wind outside, Andro Lindsay is full of praise for his host country. This Chilean “serial entrepreneur” landed in Helsinki in August 2021 with his wife and children. Seven months later, he created his company, specializing in sustainable urban planning, which he runs from Epicenter, a coworking space in the heart of the Finnish capital.
“They really rolled out the red carpet for us on arrival,” he said, still impressed. Andro Lindsay was part of the first promotion of the 90 Day Finn program (“Finn for 90 days”), launched by the municipality of Helsinki. The principle: offer entrepreneurs, creators of start-ups or researchers to come and test life in Finland for three months. Five thousand candidates, from all over the world, responded to the invitation in 2021. Helsinki selected fifteen. Half decided to stay.
For three months, they discovered the country, met investors and business leaders, received help to set up a project. The weekends were devoted to family outings: sauna, walk in the archipelago, collecting berries and mushrooms… “The idea was to make them ambassadors, to talk about Helsinki and Finland at home, but also to use their feedback to see what we could do differently to be attractive”, explains Johanna Huurre, at the origin of the program.
Attract all profiles
Because, on the international scene, competition is fierce to recruit the best talents. However, the small country of 5.5 million inhabitants, on the borders of Northern Europe, may have assets, it is still little known abroad. “When you talk about Finland, the first thing that comes to mind is cold weather or high taxes, scoffs Heini Kaihu, director of human resources at video game company Rovio. Yet, once there, many appreciate the work-life balance, access to public services, nature…”
These are all aspects that Finland intends to highlight in order to attract all the profiles it will need to cope with the aging of its population, one of the fastest in the world, and which is already affecting many sectors of society. . Between 2010 and 2020, the number of people of working age fell by 136,000 and by 2060 it will continue to decline by almost 10,000 per year.
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