In today’s Finland, landing a job is newsworthy enough for Helsingin Sanomat to report.Image: Kristiina Lehto / YleZena Iovino9:27One measure of the bleakness of Finland's labour market may be that the national daily treats finding a job as worthy of a feature story.After 295 job applications and 425 days of unemployment, Julia Toivonen caught a break and was offered a position in human resources."The worst moments," Toivonen recalls, "were those when, after an entire recruitment process, you found yourself back at square one." There were interviews, aptitude tests and presentations, only for the final message to arrive saying she had not been selected.A large number of people in Finland now find themselves in the same situation. At the end of March, nearly 140,000 people had been unemployed continuously for more than a year, an increase of around 25,000 more than a year earlier.Foreign background military serviceIltalehti reports that Finns MP Joakim Vigelius has submitted a written parliamentary question to Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen (NCP) concerning the alleged avoidance of military service among citizens with foreign backgrounds.IL says Vigelius is referring to comments made by Defence Forces captain Lauri J. Mattila.According to Mattila, in Vantaa, for instance, a majority of Arabic- and Somali-speaking males failed to attend their conscription call-up on their designated day, compared with 17 percent among those speaking Finland's national languages.In his statement, Vigelius said he had already submitted an information request in March asking how many conscripts with an immigrant background complete military service, and how many are in the reserve.In April, the Defence Command responded that the Finnish Defence Forces does not compile statistics on conscripts based on ethnic background, since such data is not relevant.Hair oil hitA 24-year-old entrepreneur has turned an initial 4,000-euro investment into a million-euro business, earning her the title of Helsinki's young entrepreneur of the year.Vera Nettebrock, a business student at Hanken School of Economics, used her savings to launch a haircare-focused start-up, according to Talouselämä.Her product, Veloide, went on to become the most purchased item in Finland at beauty retailer Lyko in 2025.SME group Suomen Yrittäjät said Nettebrock's long-held ambition to build a business materialised during an entrepreneurship course at business school, where she refined her idea and made her first sale before graduating from the programme.