Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

Immigration, both legal and illegal, has increased. The foreign workforceis more in demand: low-income blue-collar jobs are populated byforeign workers from Africa and Asia, whereas highly-educated specialistsare employed from all over the world—although most still come fromneighbouring countries. Illegal immigrants arrive especially from centraland southern Asia, due to the increased political instability in the regions.Russian is the most commonly spoken foreign language in the Helsinkiregion and there have been discussions about abolishing the status of Swedishas the second official language. One or two new orthodox churches andmosques have been built in the metropolitan area.The average level of income has decreased in Finland due to severalyears of economic stagnation and slow growth; further, differences inincome distribution have decreased slightly compared to 2010. The highermiddle class has somewhat decreased in numbers and changes in taxationhave favoured citizens with low income.189