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Thursday, 25.04.2024, 11:01
Average Estonian immigrant is a 20 something Russian man, who comes here to work
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The participants of the forum stated that a situation has developed in Estonia that Estonians themselves are looking for jobs in Finland, and instead of them, people come from Russia or Ukraine come to work in Estonia.
In Estonia, there is a fairly common perception that immigrants are looking for better life, they do not wish to work much and want to live at the cost of local welfare. In fact, given the poverty in Estonia, this is not true, said the head of the Centre for Migration Studies Kert Valdaru. "When we looked at the last period of 2008-2013, work- and family-related migration has an almost equal proportion," he said.
Tartu University economics professor Raul Eamets said that the average immigrant to Estonia comes either from Ukraine or Russia. "He is a 20-34 year man with vocational training, who is mostly here for work-related purposes, so obviously he is a taxpayer, rather than social benefits recipient," said Eamets.
Estonian state social benefits are not high enough for people from more distant states to come here en masse. "Our standard of living is currently not comparable to that of Nordic states and therefore we are not yet attractive for immigrants of the so-called more exotic countries. But when the Estonian standard of living rises, sooner or later people from more distant countries will start coming here, who are also more likely to target social benefits," he said.
Raul Eamets said that the current situation is already such that the Estonians are looking for employment opportunities in Finland, and the jobs of those who leave are filled with new workers from Russia and Ukraine.
"The question is whether those people who work in Finland will stay there, or will they come back to Estonia. A whole scheme for earning pensions in Finland has emerged now and after working five years in Finland, people come back to Estonia to retire. Probably in the future, such movement of people across borders only increases, "said Eamets.
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