How private investors could make money from integrating immigrants in Finland

The SIB programme for integration has so far created networks between labour market authorities, businesses and immigrants in the province of Uusimaa, with a focus on Helsinki and the province of Varsinais-Suomi, with a focus on Turku. The programme is now expanding to the port cities of Oulu in the north and Kotka in south-eastern Finland, plus Jyväskylä and Tavastia.

The SIB programme will be taking on new participants until the end of 2019. All the participants’ employment and periods of unemployment are followed up over three years, as part of the project.

At the end of 2022, 70 percent of those who were chosen for the SIB programme via ‘the lottery’ will be compared to the 30 percent who were declined and who have been trying to find work in other ways. They will be compared by adding up both groups’ total tax contributions, minus how much they have taken out in unemployment benefits.

If the SIB group has created more tax revenue than the other group, the private investors that provided money for the programme get 50 percent of the gain.

Or as Jussi Nykänen at Epiqus AB puts it:

“If those who participated in our programme bring in 10 money units in tax revenue and the comparative group brings in four money units, the state has made a gain of 6 money units. Private investors will get three units back from that.”