Finland has strong human resources for research and development work. For example, in 2008 Finland was the leading OECD country regarding the number of researchers per 1,000 employed people. Greater Helsinki has the highest number of highly educated professionals in the world.
The human resources in the science and technology are important actors in innovations and in the development of the knowledge economy. The human resources in science and technology in Finland consists of 50.7% of the Finnish labour force (economically active population aged 25-64). This also means that 50.7% of the labour force has attained a tertiary level science or technology degree or is employed in an occupation where such education is normally required.
The main share of the Finnish enterprises’ university educated R&D personnel work in electrical and electronics industry (6,713 in 2009). The same applies to the employees with polytechnical degrees (5,986 in 2009). Also the automatic data processing, software and consultation industries employ from both groups: 2,652 and 1,323 employees in 2009. The third important industry is the architecture (1,217 R&D employees in 2009) and related services industry (946 R&D employees in 2009).
Also, the R&D employees with research degrees (doctorates and licentiates) are often employed in the above-mentioned industries. For instance, in 2009 the electrical and electronics industry employed 428 doctorates. The Finnish chemical industry also employs R&D personnel with research degrees: 225 doctorates and 64 licentiates in 2009.
In 2009 Finnish enterprises employed 41,262 R&D personnel in total. Enterprises in Greater Helsinki had over 17,000 R&D employees in 2009. Totally in all sectors, there were over 33,000 employees engaged in R&D activities in Greater Helsinki.
The most educated people of Finland live in Greater Helsinki. The share of tertiary level educated people is very high – over a third have higher level education. For example, in the Greater Helsinki city of Espoo about 43% of the population aged 15 and older have attained a tertiary level degree.
