On building construction sites, the share of foreign labor in the whole of Finland is on average around 30 percent, according to a recent labor survey by Rakennusteollisuus RT. The share has increased since the previous survey conducted in 2019. However, the recession affecting construction has reduced work from both Finnish and foreign workers.
According to RT's labor force survey, the largest number of foreign workers work in house construction in Uusimaa, where previously every third worker was a foreigner. The share has now risen to 37 percent. There are clearly fewer foreigners in the rest of Finland and in other sectors of construction.
In infrastructure construction and the construction product industry, the share of foreign labor is less than 15 percent. In the construction product industry, foreign workers come mainly through temporary labor, and their number is expected to grow in the next few years.
A fifth of the workers on construction sites are foreigners
A more comprehensive picture of the amount of foreign labor on construction sites than the labor force survey can be obtained from the notifications received by the Tax Administration. The general contractor of the joint construction site must notify the taxman every month of all persons working on the site, regardless of the quality of the employment relationship or the employer.
Based on data from the Tax Administration, the share of foreign labor on construction sites remained around 20 percent throughout last year. The number represents the entire country on average, and includes both house and infrastructure construction and special contracting employees.
"From last year's monthly data, it can be concluded that the economic downturn in construction has tested the domestic and foreign workforce in roughly the same proportion. The number of reported workforces clearly decreased towards the end of the year. However, there was no significant change in the share of foreigners in the entire workforce during the year," the responsible jurist Ville Wartiovaara The construction industry from RT says.
Most of the foreign employees are Estonians, about 40 percent. The other most common nationalities last year were Ukrainians, Russians, Latvians, Poles, Romanians and Uzbeks.
The employment situation is rapidly deteriorating
The employment situation in construction has started to weaken since last summer with the contraction of construction. Employment in construction grew to 200 employees at its peak in recent years. The entire boom period is now being wiped out of employment, and it is threatening to drop to around 000 employed people.
The unemployment rate in construction has already risen significantly. In January, 22 percent of the members of the Rakennusliitto who are members of the open unemployment fund received daily earnings allowance, i.e. were unemployed or laid off.
"Foreign workers have returned to their countries of origin and Finns have become unemployed. Some do not return to work in the construction industry, which means a shortage of professionals and a bottleneck for growth in the future. According to the forecast of the Skills Foresight Forum, 130–000 new jobs will open in the real estate and construction industry between 140 and 000, so the need will be great,” says Ville Wartiovaara.
RT's labor force survey
The workforce survey examines the overall workforce situation of Rakennusteollisuus RT's member companies and, among other things, the share of own workforce and foreign workforce. The results are a cross-section of the workforce of the companies that responded to the survey at a certain moment.
The most recent survey describes the situation on November 30, 2023. It was answered by 133 companies from the building construction industry, with a total workforce of 21 people at the time of the response. The answers can be found for the situation of the whole country and Uusimaa separately, but in other respects the region-specific results are indicative.
The survey has been carried out in house construction so far nine times since 2007. The number of foreign workers has increased significantly during the period. In infrastructure construction, the survey was conducted for the fourth time and in the construction product industry for the first time. In infrastructure construction, the representativeness of the answers is lower than in other industries, partly due to the time of the survey.
See also
Summary of the results of the labor force survey
More information
Ville Wartiovaara, responsible lawyer, tel. 040 564 7939
Merja Vuoripuro, director of communications, tel. 040 587 2642
e-mails firstname.surname@rt.fi