"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.

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'.

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.

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

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.

It really depends on where the immigrant in question is coming from. I definitely shopped for countries back in the day.

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..

> 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.

Yes, I moved about six years 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.

> 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?

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.

> 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?

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.

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.

Thank you for finally providing which ranking you are using.

Their methodology is briefly described here: https://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings...

So, the proportion of international students and faculty (which account for 20% of the rankings) will massively bias the rankings towards English speaking universities, because more people study abroad in English.

Additionally, the academic & employer surveys are biased by the fact that name recognition is much, much higher for older universities, so it's likely that they will be perceived as being better in the absence of any real differences.

Nonetheless, when people say that Finland has the best education system in the world, they are referring to the OECD data. You're the one trying to use university rankings as a proxy for this, when it should be clear that primary & secondary education are much more important from a population perspective.

Additionally, students in Finnish universities are paid to be there, and may also be provided with housing. That's a much better deal than one would get at Oxford/Cambridge/MIT.

Not to comment negatively on Finland's university system, but when I wrote my comment on "the best education system in the world", I specifically had primary and secondary school in mind.

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.

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.

Only very few schools on earth are good and you basically have no access to them as someone working in a tax haven.

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.

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?cou...

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...

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

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.

"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)

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.

==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?

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)

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)

> (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.

Usually if you have payed taxes for 5 years you can get the German citizenship with all it's benefits, iirc.

You dont get the German citizenship but you become eligible to apply for one. Thats it.

Not if you are qualified and capable of contributing to society.

It strongly depends in nationality, and in this last year they have made rules more strict. If you are European and have good skill-sets, you are welcome. But if you are not European, you have to be special enough such for the company hiring you to be able to justify that there is no-one else in the EU that can do the job you are applying to.

This is not "just in paper". Some weeks ago I got a job offer widrawn from a company in Zürich because of this reason; me being a PhD in Applied Mathematics (granted by the ETH Zürich) but with a non-EU nationality.

They need better lawyers.

Alternatively, have you considered just getting an O-1?

They told me that they consulted with two "inmigration agencies" (I did not even knew that there existed such a thing), I would guess that they are experts in these issues.

My main weak point of entry is that I was applying to a consulting job in Data Science, and as such, it is not really possible to argue that there is no-one else left in the EU to take the job. Having a degree from the ETH indeed helps, but it wasn't enough.

They have enforced quotas per canton, which means that once filled, no-one else is getting in. Furthermore, Swiss bureacracy is the most strict one I have seen in my life, so there is no much wiggle room to bend the rules.

Either way, we can agree it isn't just based on qualifications and contribution to society as initially claimed.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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

> you have no top talent immigrating, and some top talent leaving... that’s a dangerous trend.

I wouldn't worry too much by that. Is not uncommon to spot some really talented people among immigrants, and people can learn fast in the correct environment. On the other hand sometimes there are fakers among top talented people or some experts lose a lot of shine when moved to a strange/distracting/hostile environment where they didn't grow

The Nordic countries aren't all the same and most people are not driven by a desire to maximize their salary. I have had lots and lots of colleagues who were immigrants so attracting foreign talent is not the issue. Not everyone want to live in Sweden because it is cold and people can be unfriendly. Low salaries is very low on peoples' list of complaints.