HELSINKI: The Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries’s CEO Kim Kaskiaro said that there is a noticeable drop in Estonian workers coming to work in Finland at the end of February 2015. He further added that the drop ratio of Estonian workers started at the end of 2012 and since then it is decreasing steadily.
Whether the drop is due to lack of new construction jobs or relatively new Finnish laws that require any and all workers to have a Finnish tax card is unknown. It could also be a combination of the two.
Although there are no exact figures of foreign construction workers available, it is known that the number of Estonians working construction here have been in decline for the past three years. Current estimates place the figure at 10,000 workers substantially less than 3 or 4 years ago.
The chair of the Construction Union, Kyösti Suokas said that before the tax law was changed, anyone from the EU could work in Finland. Now that having a tax card is compulsory for all, regardless of where they’re from, it has had a noticeable impact on the industry.
