Information on the jobs that deaf people held in the early 20th century can be found in the Helsinki deaf association’s membership register, in which members’ occupations were also recorded in 1899–1946. According to the register, most deaf people worked as artisans, factory workers, servants and builders. Men work most commonly as carpenters, while women typically worked as housemaids. Very few carried out non-manual work.

The student registers of the schools for the deaf also contained some information on the jobs that the students found after leaving school. The first ever systematic survey of occupations of deaf people was conducted as late as 1939. Then, the majority worked in agriculture or industry or as artisans. The survey revealed that the most common professions among deaf men were carpenter, cobbler or bookbinder. Women usually worked as housemaids, seamstresses or matrons.

Three quarters of deaf people lived in the countryside and 10% made a living out of agriculture. Farming was a less common source of livelihood for deaf people than for the hearing. In contrast, working as an artisan was more common among deaf people than for the rest of the population. Deaf people preferred to live in towns, where they had the opportunity to meet other deaf people. The majority of them supported themselves.

Economic slumps, such as the Great Depression of 1929–1933, affected the employment situations among the deaf more than the hearing population. The situation began to change gradually after the wars, but it was a slow process because old prejudices were hard to get rid of. Career counselling began in the 1940s and deaf people were typically recommended agricultural jobs. In the 1960s, new professions emerged, such as dental technician, optician and laboratory technician and various office jobs. Gradually, various career choice tests were implemented, which helped people choose a suitable profession.

In a survey conducted in 1972, the majority of about 1,000 respondents had trained at a vocational school for the deaf or other vocational training institute, at a vocational course or through apprenticeship. Just over a third of the respondents had had no formal training. Most of the respondents worked in the industrial sector, which included the conventional artisan occupations. Agriculture, forestry and the service sector were the next most common employers. New and emerging professions in the field of information technology also cropped up in the survey, with 20 respondents working as punched card makers. Almost half of the respondents had permanent positions.

Deaf associations made finding employment easier because information on good workplaces was passed on through them. As a result, several deaf people ended up working for the same employer, which made communication at work easier. Sometimes deafness also worked in the favour of the employee because employers appreciated their workers not spending time on socialising, the way hearing employees did.

There was no vocational training available specifically for Finland-Swedish deaf people, apart from a brief period in the 1950s when training was offered at the Porvoo school for the deaf. Because of this, many deaf Finns of Finland-Swedish background emigrated to Sweden where they could study and find work.

According to a survey carried out in 2000, about half of deaf people worked in industry. After industry, the biggest employers were the service sector, technical and scientific fields, the humanities and the arts, as well as administration.  About 10% of deaf people worked in media. About 6% of deaf people worked in the social welfare and health care sector, with another 6% working in agriculture and forestry.

The basic education provided by the schools for the deaf did not offer sufficient skills for work and further training opportunities were almost non-existent. Despite this, deaf people found work relatively well. Short additional courses had been offered by schools for deaf people since 1893.

When authorities admitted in the 1930s that a separate vocational school for the deaf was necessary, establishing an agricultural institute was seen as the best solution because having deaf people live in the countryside was considered beneficial to them.  Of course, many deaf people grew up in the countryside and it was thought only natural that they would return to their home region after leaving school. However, a significant number of deaf people wanted to stay in the towns to lead independent lives with other deaf people.

Therefore, three issues came under debate when decisions were made on further education. The first of them was whether a separate vocational institute was needed for deaf people at all. The second issue was whether the institute should focus on agriculture or artisan and factory work. The third question was whether academic further education would be more beneficial than vocational training.

In the 1930s, public debate on vocational training for deaf people became more active, with the discussion covering both academic further education, including grammar schools, and vocational schools and the teaching of professional skills. In 1944, a law on vocational training for deaf people was passed and consequently funding for the school was granted. The deaf community was partly disappointed in the law because it did not make it possible for deaf people to work as teachers in the school. The vocational school in Turku did not open until 1948. However, many other linguistic and cultural minorities had to wait longer to be able to access further education opportunities.

Once the school in Turku had been founded, progress in vocational training for deaf people stalled. In 1956, agricultural training for deaf people began at the agricultural institute of the Invalidisäätiö foundation for people with disabilities. The content of the training was the same as for hearing people but the course lasted three years instead of two.

Middle school was also discussed for a long time, and finally in 1968 Mikkeli’s Porrassalmi joint lyceum began to accept exam results from a middle school for the deaf. The schools for the deaf nominated the students they thought would do well in a grammar school and the National Board of General Education made the final selection. Students started middle school after attending primary school for five to seven years and therefore the age gaps were large. Deaf students used the same schoolbooks as the hearing children and exams were evaluated by teachers of mainstream grammar schools.

This situation changed when interpretation services became available in the 1980s and the number of sign language interpreters increased. The number of deaf students at mainstream educational institutes increased immensely when they had access to interpretation services.

This opened up new career opportunities and deaf students could now study fields that they could only dream of in the past. As more deaf students were able to continue to upper secondary school after secondary school, there were also more opportunities for further studies. Deaf students also attended vocational schools, business schools, art institutes, technical colleges and universities. The Kuurojen kansanopisto (folk high school for the deaf) began its operations in 1987. It offered a sign language teacher programme (later a sign language instructor programme). The programme contained academic and vocational studies and enabled graduates to work part-time as teachers of sign language at folk and adult learning centres. However, teacher training remained a field that was almost impossible for deaf people to enter. It was only in the 1980s that deaf people could study to become a teacher. Many deaf students also studied abroad, for example in Denmark or at Gallaudet, a US university for the deaf.

Poor Finnish or Swedish skills posed challenges to students and teachers alike. Communication problems could also isolate a deaf student from the hearing student community. At first, the role of sign language interpreters was not clear, and because the training was short their professional and sign language skills were often insufficient. Also, there was a shortage of interpreters, which slowed down studies for many people. No national statistics were kept on the number of people dropping out. Deaf people who were among the first to study new fields became pioneers in their professions.

Despite the obstacles, more deaf students were admitted to mainstream educational institutes and started working in new fields in the 2000s. The biggest growth in the number of deaf students was seen in universities, partly because the University of Jyväskylä started training programmes in Finnish Sign Language and for sign language class teachers.

Better access to interpretation services and a decrease in the number of deaf people in schools for the deaf affected their student intake. They began to accept hearing students.

In Jyväskylä, a ‘theoretical and practical vocational school’ for deaf carpenters operated from 1911 to 1916. Over two years, the students qualified as carpenters for whom the school found jobs. In the vicinity of Mikkeli, Helmari gardening and household management school opened its doors in 1913 and admitted deaf girls. Thirteen deaf girls attended the school and the training lasted for seven months.  Nuutila farm in Sulkava operated as an agricultural school for the deaf in 1919–1920 where four deaf boys attended 18-month training. J.O. Jacobson’s carpenter’s workshop in Turku also offered training to deaf people.

The work to build the school began in 1903. The main building, which was surrounded by fields and a garden, housed a training dairy and barn and a weaving room. The first ten students arrived in 1905 and by 1945, 377 girls had attended the school.

In addition to tuition, the school offered free room and board. The school lasted for two years, and during that time the students studied practical household work, such as cooking, making cheese and butter, baking, spinning, weaving, keeping cattle and gardening.

The first students found work as servants, housemaids, hen keepers, weavers and assistants for cattle keepers. For decades, the Nikkarila school played a major role in education for deaf women, particularly because there was very little training arranged by the public sector.

Later, Nikkarila opened its doors to hearing students and changed its name to Bovallius-opisto (Bovallius college).  In 1984, the board of vocational education took over the college. The school changed its name to Bovallius-ammattiopisto (Bovallius vocational college)in 2002 when it began to admit students with dysphasia, other language disorders and developmental disorders. In 2018, Bovallius-ammattiopisto became part of Ammattiopisto Spesia (Spesia vocational college).

The raising of share capital began in autumn 1928, and the A. Nummelin printing house and its equipment were acquired for the company and transferred to the Helsinki association’s former premises on Rikhardinkatu 2. The organisational meeting was held in summer 1929 and operations started with an eight-strong team.

A modest school was founded in connection with the company, enabling students to train as a typesetter or book printer over a four-year period. During its first 25 years of operations, it trained 34 deaf people for a profession.

Surdus faced numerous challenges. During the early stages of its operations, the company was plagued by the global depression. The Association for the Deaf supported its operations financially and by giving its magazines Kuuromykkäin Lehti and Tidskrift för Dövstumma to print. From the mid-1930s to the war, things looked good for the company but its expansion did not succeed as planned. Moreover, it was not able to accept all the students that wanted to attend the training. When its machinery gradually became outdated, it was not able to update it before the 1960s. Because of this, Surdus focused on printing smaller items, such as forms.

It operated on Aleksanterinkatu from 1933 to 1972 when it moved to more modern premises on Meritullinkatu. For financial reasons, the graphics training institute that operated in connection with Surdus had to close its doors and finally in 1979 the company filed for bankruptcy. A new owner continued operations in Surdus’ premises with the help of its staff and machinery.

The school received 59 applications and 17 students were admitted in the first year. Fourteen of the students were men and three were women. At first, the school offered training programmes for seven professions: seamstress, carpenter, upholsterer, polisher, painter, goldsmith and tailor.

The training was carried out in apprenticeships. The students learned practical work at artisan and industrial workshops during the day. After the working day, the students attended theoretical lessons in mother tongue, social science and civics, geometry, professional arithmetic and professional studies. The tuition was given in spoken language, but signing was also used.

The school did not initially have its own premises and for this reason the theoretical studies took place at the Turku school for the deaf. In 1968, on the school’s 20th anniversary, the operations moved to a separate building in Vähäheikkilä in Turku. During their studies, the students stayed in dormitories.

The first students graduated in 1951. The students qualified as carpenters, painters, bricklayers and seamstresses and one student trained as a furniture polisher. In 1968, students could qualify as filer-machinists, carpenters and dressmakers, and in 1975 courses for installer-machinist, carpenter, car body mechanic, car painter, drafting technician, cook and clothing technician were introduced. In 1980, courses for IT writers/office workers were added to the programme. The training lasted for two or three years.

Until 1972, the vocational school only had deaf students. In 1978, the first hearing student was admitted to the school and by the early 1990s, hearing students outnumbered deaf students. This was because no enough deaf students applied to the school and the remaining places were given to other students that required special education. In 2002, the school changed its name to Aura Institute, and in 2009 it became part of Bovallius-ammttiopisto and in 2018 it joined Ammattiopisto Spesia.