Chapter 7: Challenges to Recognizing Foreign Competence for Employment in Finland: Avoiding Immigrant Economic Stratification

The increasing in-flow of immigrants creates new challenges for national economies and workplaces. Employers look for specific skills and competencies while migrants arrive with qualifications that may not be described in terms that are understood, used, and recognized in the receiving country. The purpose of this chapter is to map out the first-generation migrants’ experiences–how the Finnish society has recognized their competence and provided opportunities for employment commensurate with their skill levels. A critical social theory guides the conceptual framework in which the following questions are addressed: (a) To what extent are migrants’ prior learning recognized and accepted? (b) How does this contribute to their access to jobs and career prospects? The data have been collected by face-to-face interviews and questionnaires. The data have been analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The study has revealed that there is a challenge to avoiding immigrants’ stratification into ethnic disadvantaged groups, which also reduces their well-being when the skills of new immigrants go unrecognized.