Thread by @TOrynski

Someone reminded me of that thread today, so ill tell you something.

I live in Finland now. Some time ago I left my job hoping to get another one. It didn't worked out and I became unemployed.

(A secondary thread).

https://twitter.com/TOrynski/status/1672012117426294789

After looking for a job for some time I went to local equivalent of Job Centre as I found online that unemployed people might get free language courses. 1/

The lady gave me proper bollocking for not claiming my job seekers allowance. I told her it must be mistake, how can I be entitled to job seekers allowance if it was me who quit a job and if I haven't worked in Finland even one full year yet. 2/

Turns out if you quit your job you are not entitled to job seekers benefit only for the first few weeks. And as for the latter she was like "what do you mean, you paid your social insurance for 10 months, this is what the social insurance is for" The minimum period is 6 months /3

So to my surprise I ended up with receiving Finnish jobseekers allowance, a sum about as high as the weekly Universal Credit payment I would get if I was unemployed in Scotland. /4

Except that I got this sum for every DAY of unemployment, not for every WEEK. And the limit of days I could claim it for officially is 300 working days.

The contrast in the welfare systems is astonishing. /5

And, btw, I am full time student of Finnish now on a government organized course now. It's supposed to last till February. I am expected to be on communicative level required for an everyday work after completing it. /6

The government does not considers it as a handout but as an investment, kind of vocational training because (even though I already worked here) how am I expected to get a job if I don't speak the language fluently? /7

The course is well organized, there is 18 of us in the class, we are given books and other materials, the class has quality multimedia equipment, there is free coffee, we learn not only the language but history, culture, work environment related things and we go for excursions /8

This summer we are expected to get one month long work placement to practice our Finnish in real life.

I am struggling a bit as since I tried to learn some Finnish on my own they put me straight to the second level and I seem to be lagging behind the rest of the group /9

But well, I am literally paid a 100 euros per day to study so I am just going to work hard. And the teacher set aside one afternoon per week to sit with me one-to-one and help me catch up.

/10

But you know what shocked me the most?

I jokingly told some of my Finnish friends that I am a benefit scrounger. One of them got slightly offended by this. Why? He thought I think the Finnish social system is some money giveaway. He gave me a long lecture that it is not. /11

It is a well designed social security system, it's aim is not only to provide security net but also to invest in a citizen of the country so they can get back on their feet and acquire new skills that will allow them to give back to the society.

/12

Some others simply did not understood this term and were quite shocked when I explained this is how they call benefit claimants in Britain.

So that's for it.

Compare the two threads and weep.

/13

P.S. sometimes I speak with some right wingers from Britain (or Poland) who try to tell me how bad socialism is. Whenever I bring up Finland, the conversation goes down exactly as in this meme:

Ah. One more thing. I am here for over 18 months now. I complained extensively about Finnish bureaucracy and other things (as there is a lot to complain about and being Polish, complain I do).

Not a single time I heard "if you don't like it go back to Poland / Scotland".