The population of Finland is ageing, younger age groups are becoming smaller, and the social welfare, healthcare and education sectors, in particular, are suffering from problems with employee attraction and retention. A sustainable solution requires employers to invest in wages and working conditions.
In Tehy’s view, international recruitment can secure the sufficient number of employees in the social welfare and healthcare sector and the services provided by the welfare state.
International recruitment must be ethical
As the number of foreign workforce has grown in Finland, labour exploitation and even human trafficking have increased. This is why international recruitment must be done in an ethically sustainable fashion.
Employees with an immigrant background must have the same rights and responsibilities as employees from Finland, and we must not allow two parallel labour markets to be created. For this purpose, Tehy has prepared ethical recruitment guidelines. Following these guidelines is essential to avoid serious problems.
One central principle is that international professionals should be recruited to positions that match their education level. It is neither sustainable nor ethical that nurses from the Philippines are only recruited to work as nursing assistants. This leads to a massive loss of education potential and makes Finland less attractive.
We need a permanent and streamlined model for recognising qualifications
The recognition of qualifications is currently one of the greatest obstacles to promoting labour immigration. The recognition of qualifications obtained in the EU/EEA is governed by the EU directive on the recognition of professional qualifications
For example, nurses’ and midwives’ qualifications have been harmonised across the EU. Apart from the professions covered by automatic recognition, there may be obstacles and uncertainties in recognising qualifications and the required supplemental studies even inside the EU/EEA.
Structurally, the most severe obstacles are related to the difficulty in recognising qualifications obtained outside the EU/EEA and the lack of a permanent pathway to obtaining qualifications in the EU. At the moment, there are attempts to improve the recognition of qualifications through projects and standalone solutions, but this is not sufficient.
What we need is a permanent nationwide model that accelerates and streamlines the qualification process. Without such a model, the immigration of social welfare and healthcare personnel to Finland will not grow sufficiently and our labour shortage will not be resolved.
Work communities need support with multiculturalism
Workplaces must also invest in anti-racism work and multicultural sensitivity training.
Tehy’s publication on international recruitment in social and healthcare services (in Finnish) brings up that work communities do not possess sufficient readiness to involve employees with a foreign background. Many international nurses have experienced discrimination and racism.
Employers must take responsibility and increase the measures they offer, such as multicultural training, and their orientation efforts.
It is the employers’ responsibility to ensure that each healthcare professional has the verbal and written language skills required by their job, which is also essential in terms of patient safety. (Section 18a of the Act on Health Care Professionals – in Finnish).
Finland must welcome newcomers
The shortage of healthcare personnel is a global problem, and Finland cannot assume that is an attractive country if it does not take concrete measures to increase its appeal. We do not want Finland to be just a country of transit.
It is essential that the employees recruited to Finland want to settle in and build a life with their family here. Elements such as the opportunity for family reunification and the accumulation of general and professional language skills promote the employees’ settling and feeling at home in Finland.
This requires a predictable and fair system for recognising qualifications, functional work communities, and society where each employee feels welcome and respected.