The survey was responded to by 18,618 Tehy members, of whom 17,679 were nurses and 939 were case work managers. 4% of the respondents indicated having been born outside Finland, and 3% indicated that one or both of their parents had been born abroad.
The survey included questions about the number of workers with a foreign background in the social and health care sector, the sufficiency of labour and solutions to combat the nurse shortage, the preparedness of workplaces to welcome employees with a foreign background, the equal treatment of employees and multiculturalism in workplaces.
The responses show that work communities are not sufficiently prepared to welcome employees with a foreign background. Only 16% of all respondents say that preparations have been made in their workplace. Most respondents (60%) do not know if preparations have been made, and 23% indicate that there have been no preparations.
There is a significant disparity between the responses of care work managers and employees. 46% of the care work managers state that the workplace has made preparations to welcome employees with a foreign background, but only 15% of the employees agreed.
- Work communities have not invested sufficiently into welcoming foreign care personnel. Employees are not familiar with practices of the workplaces with regard to multiculturalism and the recruitment of employees with a foreign background. This will require a lot of effort from employers, says Tehy President Millariikka Rytkönen.
The respondents suggested that preparations could be made by ensuring the language proficiency of nurses with a foreign background, providing more time for induction and organising multiculturalism training in work communities.
Moreover, multiculturalism and recruitment are important for the daily activities of work communities because more than half (51%) of the respondents indicated that their workplaces currently have nurses with a foreign background.
The number of nurses with a foreign background is far higher in the Uusimaa region than elsewhere in the country. For example, within HUS (joint authority for the wellbeing services counties of the City of Helsinki and the rest of Uusimaa) and within the Vantaa and Kerava wellbeing services county, 73% and 72% of the respondents, respectively, reported that there are nurses with a foreign background in their workplace. Elsewhere in Finland (46%), the number of nurses with a foreign background is significantly lower that in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
Nurses with a foreign background experience racism and discrimination
Most of the respondents (64%) indicated that employees are treated equally, but 24% disagreed.
In this regard, there was a clear difference depending on whether or not the respondent had a foreign background. 38% of those with a foreign background felt that the treatment at the workplace is not equal. Their experiences of equal treatment were far worse than those of other respondents.
According to nurses with a foreign background, unequal treatment took the form of acts such as belittling their competence (24%), unequal distribution of holidays and work shifts (21%), racism and prejudice (20%), unfair distribution of work tasks and responsibility areas (14%), discrimination based on language proficiency (11%), social relationships (11%) or discrimination based on status (8%).
According to Rytkönen, the issue boils down to racism and the demeaning and humiliating treatment described by the respondents, which must be stopped.
- The racism may be partially due to the fact that the employers are not sufficiently prepared for welcoming nurses with a foreign background and work communities are not trained for multiculturalism. We need to look in the mirror in society, working life and even the trade unions to make sure that nurses with a foreign background feel welcome and stay in Finland.
Another reason to tackle the issue quickly is the fact that Finland is competing for social and health care professionals who are in short supply across the globe. It has been estimated that the world lacks more than 10 million nurses and midwives. In addition to this, there is a shortage of other social and health care workers.
- We at Tehy welcome social and health care professionals from other countries. Employers must increase their capacity to attract and retain employees or, simply put, improve working conditions and pay to draw more nurses to the field from Finland and abroad.
The survey was carried out by Aula Research and commissioned by Tehy. The response percentage of the survey was 18 and it was conducted electronically in March 2023.
Further information:
Tehy President Millariikka Rytkönen, can be contacted through a special advisor, tel. +358 (0)400 540 005
Tehy Director Kirsi Sillanpää, tel. +358 (0)40 820 7848
The e-mail format is firstname.lastname(at)tehy.fi