Soon spring will return to this Nordic city, some 173 km south of the Polar Circle. The ice will melt in the Gulf of Bothnia, and modern leisure-yachts will join the paper laden cargo-ships. Summer sees firs and birches stretch towards their growth-peak and sooner or later become ripe for felling. Nokia by the way started its production based on wood products as a paper-mill company back in 1865, and Oulu in 1900 portrayed itself as the "tar town" – a centre for manufacturing and export of this wood-based commodity. During the season ships sailed southward with barrels of this sticky, impregnating liquid together with salted (wild) salmon and emigrants ready to set out for North America.
'Modern' Oulu emerged in 1959. This was the year that the university, with a clear technological profile, came to town. The merchants, shop-assistants, engineers, industrial workers, health personal and public employees gradually saw an increasing number of academics and students join their midst. Currently, university students account for no less than 25 000 of the city's 130 000 inhabitants. There are probably more Ph.Ds per square metre here than anywhere else in the world, claims the International Herald Tribune, as quoted by Oulu Inspires, an official municipal enterprise. Measuring students relative to overall population definitely puts Oulu in the top division as far as Norden's centres of learning go.
Nevertheless, unemployment in Oulu remains stubbornly high, at approximately ten percent, or two percent more than the average for Finland. At the same time, the growth in new jobs in the town has more or less been double the average for Finland as a whole. However this growth has largely been "eaten up" by the continuing influx of new population into Oulu.
More than half of the citizens in the town/region have jobs. This is typical for Finland. Out of 68 000 registered jobs in Oulu city close to 10 000 are filled by civil servants within the city itself. The second largest employer is the Northern Ostrobothnia Hospital with some 5 500 employees. Number three employer is the Nokia Group with 4 700, some 500 of whom are researchers. Oulu University has 3000, Vocational Training 1500, Kesko 1300 and Stora Enso 1000. Stora Enso has however recently announced major loses, even after deciding to 'rationalise' by closing factories in Summa and Kemijärvi in Finland as well as at Norrsundet, north of Gävle in Sweden.
In relation to what we generally term 'the Nordic innovation environment', Oulu is often portrayed as some kind of 'innovation heaven' with Nokia of course being to the fore here. But on the internet Nokia does not really exist in Oulu. Indeed, one can hardly find any information about Nokia in Oulu on the company's official homepage. The same goes for the subsidiary company Nokia Siemens which employs the majority of the Nokia Group's staff in Oulu. Globally however Nokia Group employs a total of 112 000 people in 120 different countries.
How Nokia present the company's research centre at Ruoholahti in Helsinki. Photo: Nokia
Nokia's headquarters is in Espoo close to Helsinki. The research centre is in Ruoholahti, Helsinki, in a new 'trendy' waterfront transformation property. The company's chief technical executive Bob Iannucci has his office in Silicon Valley. In Finland the company also has premises in Salo, Jyväskylä, Tampere and Turku in addition to Espoo/Helsinki and Oulu. Moreover, Tampere, Jyväskylä and to some extent also Turku remain, in many ways, competitors to Oulu by being cities which also promote high level technical education in combination with R & D.
Like any other huge international company Nokia opens and closes premises depending on how they judge the potential for profit. Earlier this year it was for example announced that Nokia will close its factory in Bochum, Nordrhein-Westfalen, employing 2 300 persons. With the production of mobile telephones being transferred to Cluj in Romania. This has led the regional govern-ment of Nordrhein-Westfalen to demand that Nokia repay 41 million Euros. The sum is what this German regional authority claims they have provided in subsidises to Nokia since they located to Bochum. Nokia's initial reaction to the demand was that it was "surprising".
Most of the city fathers in Oulu (yes, they are mostly males), do not see much point in openly criticizing Nokia. Instead they prefer to talk about what is needed to "keep the steam of the city high": – Our challenge is to become a city of growth in the global market, a town that is attractive to companies from abroad, companies who also employ people who do not speak Finnish, underlines Jukka Klemettilä, the CEO of Oulu Innovations Ltd, a non-profit making development company in the high tech sector.
– It is important to understand that we are relatively low cost compared to e.g. Helsinki, you get more research for your money here than in the capital. At the same time we cannot reduce more on cost and therefore we have to compete by other methods, he adds.
The town council is very united with regard to facilitating cooperation between business and the universities. We have learned that this is of the utmost importance in order to provide jobs and opportunities, says Kyösti Oikarinen, a member of the Centre Party and chairman of the City Council of Oulu.
He underlines that the town council remaines very much aware of the fact that the future must be more than Nokia: – Many Nokia jobs have already gone to China. We must also curtail the flow of emigration to Helsinki. Therefore we need good schools, a wide variety of cultural attractions and the ability to provide attractive housing.
– It has been argued that Oulu also needs substantial immigration?
– I agree, but thus far we have not succeeded. We have many work-related students here from say, China and Turkey, but most of them leave after finishing theirs degrees or internships. Obviously they do not feel 'at home' here and miss their families and friends, so it is not easy to encourage them to stay.
In fact, Oulu already has an international school teaching in English. During breaks however most of the kids speak Finnish. The reason is that most of them
are sons and daughters of Finnish Nokia-employees pursuing an international career.
Heikki Pudas is the director of municipal Innovations and City Marketing (Oulu inspires). He notes that Oulu is now the wireless capital of the world. In other words, with the right equipment you can connect to the internet free of charge anywhere in the town. He trumpets the city's educational facilities and the fact that 18 000 of the jobs in the city, that is more than a quarter, are in the high tech area. In other words, more than 13 000 of these jobs are outside Nokia with many being in small companies employing less than 20 people.
– Altogether then substantial opportunities for growth and to establish new companies remain, he says, adding that one should observe that, geographically, Oulu is situated quite close to the Barents Sea with ample opportunity to be involved in the future extraction of oil and gas. Most companies in the city are on a sound financial footing. I also think it is a good sign for the future that in recent months quite a few engineers from India have come to Oulu to work here on contracts, Heikki Pudas adds.
By Odd Iglebaek