Everything about Finland for foreigners

It is not easy for a foreigner to find a job in Finland especially if you are looking for a permanent full time job. The best possibilities are for temporary workers in hotels, restaurants and stores. Unfortunately the recent COVID-19 crisis has hit these industries hard and unemployment levels have risen substantially. However there are always some open positions in the labor market. I noticed that Duunitori, one of the leading recruitment sites in Finland, has recently opened their new service that focuses only on English job openings. If you visit www.jobsfinand.fi you will find all listed open vacancies where job listing is available in English.

Finland belongs to the East European Time EET timezone which is GMT +2 hours. It means that Finland is one hour ahead compared to the majority of Europe that live in Central European Time CET. CET is GMT +1. Finnish time zone has some practical influences on business and work in Finland: Finland based employees can have virtual meetings with Asian and US colleagues at the same working day. If Finnish employees start they day 8-9, which is normal in Finland, they still have few common hours with their Asian colleagues or customers for virtual meetings. Later in the afternoon US colleagues or customers start their working day when Finnish employees are leaving the office but it's still possible to schedule meetings late in the Finnish afternoon or early evening so that US colleagues attend. From Finland it's easy to fly to Central Europe for meeting in the morning. The one hour advance makes it possible to take early flight from Helsinki and arrive in Central Europe around 9...

Thursday 6.12.2012 is Independence Day in Finland. Independence Day is national holiday in Finland and almost all shops will be closed. Only few grocery stores in Helsinki center (for example K-Market Kamppi and S-Market Rautatientori) are open on Indepencence Day. Also some restaurants will be closed but many of them are open.

Today Helsingin Sanomat, the major newspaper in Finland, announced that they will make their website www.hs.fi a paysite. Few months earlier the major financial newspaper Kauppalehti changed their website also only for paying customers.

The Finnish National Icehockey team won the 2011 world championship and the celebration of this gold medal has been very much like a carneval in Helsinki. Second coach of the national hockey team Pasi Nurminen has become very famous because it seems that has partied gold medals too hard. When the winning team arrived at Helsinki Airport Pasi Nurminen fell at the red carpet.

Tomorrow evening 15.5.2011 will be a very special evening in Finland when our national ice hockey team is playing in the ice hockey world championship final agains Sweden. Every sports pub will be crowded tomorrow and if Finland wins the game there will be a huge party evening at least in the biggest cities.

If you want to go to the barber who speaks fluent english there is one excellent place to visit. The Barber Shop is owned and operated by english gentleman who serves his customers in english at Punavuori (Fredrikinkatu 19). More about The Barber Shop can be found here in the parturi helsinki -website.

1st of May (Vappu) is a very special day in Finland. Vappu is originally a workers day and it was especially important carneval for the labour unions and students but today Vappu is a national holiday that everybody celebrates somehow. This year 1st of May is Sunday and I expect that the Saturday evening will be a carneval day in every city in Finland and especially in Helsinki. On Sunday celebration will be more sophisticated and the most important place is the Kaivopuisto in southern Helsinki. If the weather is not horrible there will be many people having their picnic and enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

Helsingin Sanomat tells that w ith less than a week to go before Parliamentary elections, the conservative National Coalition Party remains Finland’s most popular. In what appears to be developing into a close race, the True Finns have fallen from second to fourth place, while the Social Democratic Party has inched past the Centre Party to the number-two spot. More information about the poll is here. http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Poll+National+Coalition+Party+the+largest+SDP+gains+True+Finns+fall+back/1135265335553

Parlamentary elections in Finland take place every fourth year. The next elections are this spring and campaigns are going on at the moment. This year elections have been very interesting because nationalist new party (Perussuomalaiset) has received significant media attention. Voting will take place April 17th 2011. The list of candidates in parlamentary elections can be found here: http://192.49.229.35/E2011/e/ehd_listat/kokomaa.htm

Previously we wrote about car rentals in Helsinki but here is one link to the blog where you can find all major car rent companies in Helsinki.

Here is one blog with restaurant reviews . It includes selection of restaurants in Helsinki.

City of Porvoo is an excellent choice for one day visit if you want to see an old smaller city and learn something about the history of Finland. Porvoo is located appr 70km east from Helsinki and by car it takes appr. 45 minutes to drive motorway. There is also a good frequent bus connection to Porvoo and by bus it takes appr. 50-60 minutes from Helsinki to Porvoo. The most popular place for visits in Porvoo is by far Old Town and the beautiful Cathedral. Cathedral of Porvoo is the third most popular church in Finland as measured in number of visitors. The Cathedral has been repaired after the fire in 2006. Porvoo is ideal for 1/2 or full day visits. You can learn more about the  City of Porvoo here .

Finland is a democracy and parliament elections are every fourth and presidental elections in every sixth year. In these elections only persons with Finnish nationality can vote. However in the city level municipal elections all persons (18 years old or more) who have permanent adress in the city or town and citizenship in some EU country, Norway or Iceland, can vote. Also citizens of other countries can vote if they have had permanent adress in the city or town for more than two years.

If you are staying in Finland for longer than typical tourist visit, you notice that many Finnihs companies offer their loyalty cards and give special prices for their frequently visiting customers. Most of them give very little benefit and their main focus is to get contact information of customers for targeted advertising. However there are some loyalty cards that many finns do have and you should consider. 1. S-Etukortti . You cannot avoid using services of S-Group in Finland because they have strong market position in retail shopping (Sokos, S-Market, Alepa), hotels (S-Hotels), restaurants (Chico's, Rosso, Coffee House, Amarillo and many others) and gas stations (ABC). Their loyalty card is called Co-op membership and you can get benefit every time you visit any S-Group company. 2. Another major player in Finland is Kesko and their loyalty card is called Plussa-card . Unfortunately their website is only in Finnish. If you have the S-Etukortti and this Plussa-card you have a...

If you are working in a Finnish company and your employment is based on the Finnish legislation you will have four weeks summer holiday and one week winter holiday after few years of working. You will have the full summer holiday after one year of working and year after that you will have also the winter holiday. In addition to this there are some national holidays in Finland. For example the Independece day 6.12 and the spring festival at the first of May.

There are many rather good modestly priced average restaurants in Helsinki but only few excellent high class Restaurants. The most famous restarants where you can take business fellows and be sure you get excellent service are: G.W. Sundmans Michelin rated G.W. Sundmans is located by the sea very close to the market square. G.W. Sundmans is one of the appreciated high-end restaurants in Helsinki. Chez Dominique Chez Dominique is definitely a high-end restaurant just like G.W.Sundmans. However their dishes are sometimes more expremental. http://www.eat.fi/ is an excellent website to search for restaurants in Helsinki.

Madonna, Bono, The Rolling Stones and many other world famous stars choose Hotel Kämp when their world tour visits Helsinki. There is more about Hotel Kämp in one hotel blog .

If you are living in Finland and you want to find natural ways to meet local people and learn more about local lifestyle you may find these tips useful. 1. Use internet and Facebook Facebook is a good way to get better contact to the people you already know in Finland. Facebook will not only help you to connect with your friends but it makes you easy to see what are they interested in. By checking the new groups they join and news they comment you will quikly learn many things about the lives of your Finnish friends. In most working places it's very normal to ask friends in facebook at least those colleagues you meet reguraly at work. If you are working in a smaller organization you can ask almost everyone to be your facebook friend. 2. Be active in NPF organizations There is huge number of all kinds of non-profit organizations in Finland. If you are interested in arts, sports, charity or culture you surely find an organization to join and meet people with similar interests. ...

http://www.vertaa.fi/ is a useful tool if you want to compare prices of airline tickets, electronical equipments, mobile phones or some other standardised products. It is a website that gathers information from various sources and tells you where you can buy specified item at lowest price. This service works very well for the most common items like TVs, cameras and airline tickets. Unfortunately the website is in Finnish but it is very easy to use if you understand few keywords and understand locic of website search tools. For example here you can search for airline tickets: http://www.vertaa.fi/lentoliput/ Here you can search for cheapest digital cameras: http://www.vertaa.fi/digikamerat/ Here you can search for books, games etc.: http://www.vertaa.fi/viihde/