Hiring non-native workers is good business and here’s the data to prove it
Hiring non-native workers increases exports, product range, and market access. New ETLA data backs Herizon’s approach with hard evidence.
ETLA’s latest working paper supports what we see at Herizon every day: companies that bring in non-native talent see a measurable increase in export performance. The study followed Finnish manufacturing firms for nearly three decades. After hiring their first non-native employee, firms started exporting more, both in volume and in the number of products, and began exporting to new countries, especially the home countries of the employees they hired.
The numbers are concrete:
- Hiring the first non-native employee increased the probability of exporting to their home country by more than 10 percentage points.
- Firms added around five new exported products in the years following the hire.
- Total exports rose by approximately 3% across all firms, and by 5–7% among companies that were already exporting.
- These effects remained consistent over an 8-year follow-up period.
- Still, over 70% of Finnish manufacturing firms didn’t hire a single non-native worker during the study period.
Maczulskij Terhi
Find the ETLA's study here.
At Herizon, we don’t see this as surprising. When a company hires someone with deep knowledge of a market language, systems, and network, it lowers the friction of expansion. Market entry becomes faster. Product-market fit improves. The approach becomes operational, not theoretical.
The ETLA data showed an increase of around five new products exported after hiring international talent. That supports what we’ve built: a hiring model focused on matching companies with geo-domain experts who understand specific regions and customer behavior. Especially when a company is scaling to serve new markets or launching customer-facing functions, one hire can change the outcome. It’s faster and more sustainable than outsourcing or guessing.
Still, most companies in Finland haven’t made this shift. According to the study, more than 70% of manufacturing firms had never hired a non-native employee. That reflects what we’ve seen more broadly. There’s a gap between talk and action. Companies say they want to internationalize. They invest in strategy decks and consultants. But they ignore the most direct lever available: hiring someone who already knows the market they’re trying to reach.
At Herizon, we work with cities and growth-stage companies to close that gap. We identify high-competence candidates already based in Finland who speak the language, understand the customer, and can act as commercial bridges. In many cases, these individuals have stronger insight into foreign markets than any external advisor ever could. They’re not theoretical additions to the team. They’re operators who build traction.
Finland has not only a shortage of international talent. The problem is that most of it is here already, sitting on the bench. These are professionals with degrees, industry experience, and deep knowledge of markets that Finnish companies claim they want to reach. The cost of ignoring them shows up in slow market entries, failed expansions, and lost opportunities.
The ETLA paper adds weight to what we already know: hiring international talent increases exports. But the shift requires companies to rewire how they think about hiring. Not just filling roles, but finding people who solve business problems, especially when those problems involve cross-border growth.
Companies that figure this out early will move faster. The rest will watch others take the lead.
