Finland Needs Immigrant Workers To Fill Labor Gaps - Finance Minister

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th August, 2019) Finnish Finance Minister Mika Lintila warned on Wednesday that the Scandinavian nation needed more immigrants to replace the retiring workforce.

"The biggest challenge will be that over the next decade half of those working for the state will retire ... The big question is where we'll find workers then," Lintila was cited as saying by the Yle public broadcaster.

The jobless rate in Finland was at 6.7 percent in June, according to Eurostat. It saw the European Union's third biggest rise in the share of the retiring population in the past decade, with 21.4 percent being 65 or older in 2018.

The aging population has put financial pressure on the budget as the country struggles to foot the bill for the increasingly costly welfare and healthcare services. The Finnish government quit in March after failing to deliver a social welfare reform.