I'm going to be 17 and turning 18 at the time when I want to be an au pair. I know most agencies only want 18 and over, but I was wondering if there were any legal restrictions on working as an au pair, specifically in Finland.
Other - Europe - 2 Answers
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1 :
18 yr old is seen as a consenting adult in Finland, so there are no restrictions on working. Even 16 yr olds can work as au pairs, there are just some restrictions on how much you can earn in a month (i.e. how many hours you can work, so you'll have some spare time too as you're a minor). But if you're 18 when arriving to Finland, there'll be no problems! And you can also hit the clubs, buy your own beer/cider.. ;)
2 :
There are some legal restrictions for workers under the age of 18, but usually they are pretty meaningless in ordinary jobs. Actually when you're at least 15 years and graduated your school (takes 9 years in Finland, so usually all the 15 year olds have done it) you can do most of the same jobs than the ones who have turned 18, as long as it doesn't involve something you need to be 18 to do (like driving a car or selling alcohol), but as an au pair 15 years should be enough. The most important restrictions are about working hours. Maximum working hours can't exceed 9 hours a day or 48 hours a week, and you can only do 80 hours of overtime work during a year. Now I don't know how they count the working hours for an au pair, but I'm fairly confident that the working hours are normally within the legally set limits.
