Number and share of employed people with foreign background increased in 2024
In 2024, one in ten employed people in Finland had a foreign background. While employment rates have slightly declined, the number and share of foreign-background workers continued to grow, especially in health care, manufacturing, and service sectors.
Despite a slight decline in employment rates over the past two years, the number and share of employed people with a foreign background continued to grow in 2024. Now they make up one in ten of all employed people in Finland.
Since the early 2000s, the overall growth in employment in Finland has largely been driven by people with a foreign background. Their share of employed people aged 20–64 has risen from 4% in 2010 to 10%, according to labour force survey data.
“The employment rate of foreign-background individuals rose steadily for years, but began to decline in 2023 as the economic situation worsened. While their population continued to grow in 2023 and 2024, the number of employed did not increase at the same pace. Among people with Finnish backgrounds, the employment downturn came a year later and was milder,” says Tarja Baumgartner, Senior Statistician at Statistics Finland.
“There was a sharp rise in foreign-background professionals for several years, but their numbers declined in 2023. However, in 2024, the number of foreign-background employees in manual and service jobs increased compared to the previous year,” adds Senior Researcher Hanna Sutela.
The health and social services sector is Finland’s largest employer—and the same holds true for those with a foreign background: nearly one in six foreign-background employees worked in that field in 2024. Other key sectors included manufacturing (12 %) and administrative and support services, including cleaning and facility management (11 %).
The share of foreign-background workers in administrative and support services has grown significantly in recent years, reaching 22 % in 2024.
When employment rates are broken down by region of origin, the highest rate—81 %—was among people from the EU, EFTA, and North America. This was higher than among people with Finnish backgrounds, whose rate was 79 %. The lowest employment rate, 53 %, was seen among those from the Middle East and North Africa. Between 2021 and 2024, the most notable changes were a decrease in employment among Estonian-background men, and a clear increase among women from sub-Saharan Africa.
The data in Statistics Finland’s report are based on the Labour Force Survey and population register data on origin.
