TALLINN - According to the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, the flow of jobs from Finland to Baltics is just getting started.
Pekka Yla-Anttila, CEO of the ETLA subsidiary Etlatieto, explained that a transfer of service production to other countries was inevitable. Finland, he said, has no clear competitive advantage over countries such as the Baltic states.
For example, Finland will soon be competing with the Baltics, which boast low wages and an abundance of skilled workers, as a producer of software.
According to Yla-Anttila, signs of globalization in the service sector have been clear for the past couple of years.
Some Indian software companies have even expanded their operations to Finland.
Also, if in general the language barrier hinders the move of Finnish jobs abroad, in Estonia no significant problems with that barrier exist. Indeed, many Finnish corporations have already established call-centers in Estonia.
Yla-Anttila stressed that he saw Estonia as a future location of high-quality software development.
