Supercell and other Finnish studios have had difficulties hiring foreign workers

The executive director of Supercell Ilkka Paananen criticized the Finnish migration policy. According to him, because of the bureaucracy, it is difficult for game studios to hire specialists from abroad.

Ilkka Paananen
According to yle, work permits in Finland have to wait an average of 52 days.

This is twice the average, which in 2018 was 25 days. According to Paananen, such long terms are unacceptable.

“This is a disaster,” Paananen said on Twitter. — World—class experts – potential large taxpayers – want to work in Finland. But our bureaucracy prevents us from bringing them here. The creators will not wait for permission (to work) for three or four months.”

Meanwhile, the Finnish immigration service, as Pocket Gamer writes, complains about insufficient funding and a shortage of employees. For this reason, the processing time for requests from foreigners has increased.

It should be noted that 3,200 people are employed in the Finnish gaming industry (data for April of this year). A quarter of them work from abroad. Over the past two years, the share of foreigners among game developers in Finland has grown by 75%.

Also on the topic:

• The number of employees of the Finnish game dev has grown to 3.2 thousand in two years