Residence permits based on work to be sped up

A ministerial working group on Friday observed that cooperation between the authorities should be improved and electronic and customer services developed for processing residence permits on the basis of employment, said an official press release.

The ministerial working group on migration made the observation after it discussed the report of a pilot study commissioned by the government on bottlenecks in the processing of such residence permits.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment commissioned the study in collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior to address delays in the processing of residence permits for employed persons due to drawn-out processing times.

The objective of the study was to identify bottlenecks in the processing of residence permits on the basis of employment and propose well-grounded recommendations for their eradication.

“A key issue seems to be a lack of joint coordination and development efforts among the relevant authorities. We need to work together to develop our residence permit processes comprehensively and on a long-term basis. If we attach too much importance to details, we will lose sight of the big picture,” said Minister of Employment Jari Lindström who is responsible for integration policies.

“Each employee arriving in Finland is an important asset for their prospective employer, and delays in the residence permit process can at worst jeopardise companies’ operations. The migration authorities have actively developed electronic services. Our goal is that by using these good practices and tools more extensively we can speed up the residence permit processes,” said Minister of the Interior Kai Mykkänen.

Based on the report, the ministerial working group on migration drew up a list of concrete measures to tackle bottlenecks in the residence permit process. Progress on these measures will be reported to the ministerial working group.

The pilot study recommended eight for measures to speed up the processing of residence permits on the basis of employment. These are improving process management, monitoring and development work across administrative barriers; reducing the number of insufficiently or incorrectly filled out applications; improving electronic services; improving exchange of information between authorities; improving the waiting list management and pre-screening of applications for partial decisions by Employment and Economic Development Offices by exploiting the potential of the UMA information system; improving the organisation of interviews of applicants; improving the transparency of customer services and permit processes; and developing legislation that affects the permit processes and their development.

A two-stage process is applied for issuing residence permits for employed persons.

First, the Employment and Economic Development Office (TE Office) checks whether the applicant has a sufficient level of income, whether the employment is temporary or continuous and whether any labour suitable for the job in question is available in Finland or the EU/EEA area within a reasonable time. Next, the Finnish Immigration Service decides whether to approve or reject the residence permit application.