The Finns Party blames the country's record-high unemployment on immigrants, while the opposition Social Democrats say immigrants are among the first people to be affected by a weak economy.
That's according to Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet, which covered a parliamentary debate on Tuesday.
The opposition Centre Party accused PM Petteri Orpo's (NCP) coalition government of causing Finland to have the highest unemployment rate in the EU.
Citing a report by the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (Etla) think tank, Finns Party MP Jorma Piisinen said immigrants were behind the problem — alleging that was a "statistical fact".
Etla's report said foreign-born people accounted for 44 percent of the increased unemployment. MP Piisinen claimed that employment among "native Finns" is as high as it was in 2022 — when Finland's slide into recession began.
But the paper said the data on all that is not crystal clear.
"While the relative employment of immigrants has decreased, the number of employed immigrants has increased by 90,000 during the first five years of the 2020s," HBL explained.
SDP MP Sandra Bergqvist disagreed with Piisinen's assertions.
"We must be able to distinguish between causes and consequences. For example, the weak employment among immigrants is not the cause of the weak economy, but it is the weak economy that primarily affects those who are in a vulnerable position," Bergqvist said.
In their defence, members of governing parties blamed Finland's economic hardships on repercussions from Russia's invasion of Ukraine — not the government's labour market reforms.
"You know that these times are exceptionally difficult, that everything is not in our own hands," said NCP MP Pia Kauma, who is from Espoo.
In response, opposition Centre Party MP Antti Kurvinen raised his voice.
"Unemployment is as big as your hometown!" he said.
Kauma comes from Espoo, which has just over 320,000 inhabitants — while there are around 295,000 unemployed people in the country, the paper noted.
Social Democrat MP Piritta Rantanen suggested that the government has already thrown in the towel on its goal to create 100,000 new jobs during its term.
"When the government doesn't even believe in its own goals, how are the people supposed to? You have broken the people's trust and it is now visible in the numbers," Rantanen said.
Statistics Finland reported on Tuesday that the country's unemployment rate fell very slightly in January. The trend of the unemployment rate fell to 10.3 percent in January, compared to 10.7 percent in December.
According to Eurostat, Finland had the EU's worst unemployment rate in December.
Espoo's new Muslim principal
The Mainingin koulu comprehensive school in Espoo has just selected Suaad Onniselkä as its next principal, Helsingin Sanomat reports.
She may be one of the only Muslim public school principals in all of Europe, according to the daily.
When she was hired in Espoo, Onniselkä was serving as deputy principal at a school in Eastern Helsinki.
But her career has seen stumbling blocks, according to the paper.
At first, as a headscarf-wearer, she was not initially allowed into the teachers' room. Later, as deputy principal, she said that sometimes others mistook her for a school counsellor or a cleaner.
"I'm used to being considered somehow suspicious when meeting new people," Onniselkä told HS.
Onniselkä is due to begin her new job next month, and when she does, she may be the only principal in the country who is also a Muslim.
The school administrator converted to Islam in the 1990s, the paper explained, and began wearing headscarves while at university. It wasn't a problem at first, but gradually, she started encountering prejudices.
"Back then, discrimination was amateurish. People did things unintentionally," she told the paper.
"Today, [discrimination] has become more professional," Onniselkä said, explaining that discrimination and racism have become increasingly structural.
In its most egregious form, she said discrimination prevents children from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds from being considered part of Finnish society.
Additionally, there are myths that students with immigrant backgrounds aren't required to perform as well academically as locals.
She said that when it comes to these minority groups, there are also misconceptions that bad behaviour is just part of their cultures. In contrast, when it comes to kids with Finnish backgrounds, bad behaviour is addressed through studies and intervention.
In Onniselkä's opinion, those kinds of attitudes place kids in unequal positions, where they do not receive equal support.
Additionally, she thinks that Finns' attitudes towards minorities have hardened.
Sometimes, because of her first name and headscarf, people mistaken her for an immigrant. But she is actually a native Finn, and it seems to take people aback.
As an example, Onniselkä said someone filed a criminal report with police, alleging that her Finnish skills were not sufficient for the position she held.
"It made me smile a little, because you can hear from my speech that Finnish is my native language," she told HS, which noted that police did not open a preliminary investigation into the matter.
The flu that won't go away
There is no sign of the end to the already-long influenza epidemic, according to Ilta-Sanomat.
The flu season was already considered comparatively long last week.
According to Niina Ikonen, senior specialist at public health authority THL, flu cases have continued to rise this month.
The agency recorded nearly 1,300 confirmed influenza cases in the first week of February. However, by mid-month, in the eighth week of the year, nearly 1,400 flu cases have been confirmed, the paper explained.
According to Ikonen, it was still the middle of the week, so more confirmed cases may still come in.
Flu is spreading across the country, affecting people of all ages. However, the regions of Central Ostrobothnia and Kanta-Häme are particularly affected, she explained.
The official numbers may not be telling the actual story, however, as people in some regions may be more likely to seek professional help for their illnesses than others.
"Most people who get sick stay at home," she said, noting that THL's data only covers lab-confirmed influenza cases in people who went to the doctor.
According to Ikonen, the flu epidemic's peak may last for a few more weeks.
