Finland must not shift responsibility for its lack of workforce to developing countries or recruit people from countries that are suffering from their own shortage of health care personnel. Similarly, the emigration of skilled labour must not cause basic services in the source countries to deteriorate or their education systems to be skewed into generating professionals for the needs of other countries.

Finland should not recruit people from countries that are on WHO’s regularly updated safeguards list. The health care services in these countries are at a critical level and cannot cope with extensive recruitment of professionals to other countries.

According to the principles of ethical recruitment, health care professionals can only be recruited from abroad for roles that they have the training and qualifications for. In other words, nurses must be recruited as nurses, not as practical nurses or care assistants.

Hiring nurses as care assistants can lead to a professional dead end, making it difficult or even impossible to progress to a nurse’s profession and is a significant waste of education.

The rules of working life must be fair to everyone, and workplaces must be equal and safe for everyone. Moreover, every employee is responsible for building an equal work community and taking active action against racism. 

Recruitment agencies are insufficiently controlled when it comes to international recruitment, and the resources for monitoring them are inadequate. Moreover, some of these companies have no experience in the care sector, and nor do they know its qualification and language skill requirements. All parties involved in a recruitment process must agree to comply with the ethical recruitment guidelines when recruitment takes place abroad.

An employee must be provided with accurate information

During recruitment, an immigrant must be provided with accurate information before they leave their home country. This should include information

• about the employer
• the job and duties on offer
• the employment terms and conditions
• the differences between fixed-term and permanent jobs
• the probation period
• the qualification recognition process
• the required qualifications and language skills
• language tests
• pay
• prices and taxation in Finland
• housing
• trade unions
• Finnish society
• working life and legislation.

Furthermore, it is important for the employees to understand what their status will be if their employment contract ends.

Employment contracts must always be in a written format. Additionally, their content must be explained to the employees to ensure that they are familiar with their rights and obligations.

Employees must have a clear understanding of the distribution of costs – which elements lie with the recruiting company, which ones with the employer and which ones with the employee.

Foreign employees should not be charged a commission

Foreign employees should not be charged a commission or other recruitment-related fees. (For example: The Act on Public Employment and Business Service, ILO’s Private Employment Agencies Convention No. 181 and the EU Directive on Temporary Agency Work.) This rule may not be bypassed by charging new employees fees connected to language training, integration or finding accommodation. The Act on Public Employment and Business Service includes a clause on gratuitousness, the violation of which is sanctioned according to the Criminal Code (Chapter 47, Section 6).

If local companies are used for recruitment in a country of origin, they must also comply with the same ethical principles. Employment service providers may not charge any employment service related fees to an employee, even if these fees are legal in the country of origin. Corruption must also not be accepted.

Employers must comply with the labour laws and the applicable collective agreements in all employment relationships.

A recruiting employer of a temporary agency worker must, at a minimum, comply with the requirements of the collective agreement that binds the service recipient company, if the recruiting employer is not bound by a collective agreement based on its normal or universal applicability (Chapter 2, Section 9 of the Employment Contracts Act).

Temporary agency workers are paid by the recruiting employers, who are also responsible for the minimum conditions that apply to the employment relationship. In addition to that, an employer must always make sure that its employees have adequate professional skills and experience for their roles. Sufficient language skills are described in Section 18a of the Act on Health Care Professionals.

The service recipient employer has a right to manage and monitor the work carried out by temporary agency workers and are responsible for those obligations that are directly linked to working (Chapter 1, Section 7(3) of the Employment Contracts Act) They are also responsible for providing employees with appropriate induction to their duties.

Contractor’s verification obligation

The Act on the Contractor’s Obligations and Liability When Work Is Contracted Out governs the contractors’ obligation to check certain things. According to the Act, a contractor must verify that their agreement partners comply with their statutory obligations as agreement parties and employers.

A contractor refers to any employer that uses a temporary agency worker. According to law, a contractor, for example a company or a municipality, is obligated to check that its agreement partners adhere to certain legal requirements. For example, employers must arrange occupational health care for their immigrant workers and ensure their occupational health and safety. Contractors must also identify the collective agreement that applies to the work or the key terms and conditions of an employment relationship (Section 5 of the Act on the Contractor’s Obligations and Liability when Work is Contracted Out).

Immigrants must be paid the same amount as the other individuals working for the same employer. Pay may not be reduced due to a lack of language skills.

Furthermore, an employee may not be hired for a lower ranking role due to their lack of language skills. An employer is responsible for ensuring that the staff members have sufficient language skills, and that patient safety is not put at risk.

Public sector

The basic rates paid in the public sector have been agreed in the social and health care sector’s collective agreement, and the rates may not be reduced.

If an employee does not have the training for a specific task and does, therefore, not carry out the same work as others, the employee’s pay may be reduced by up to 10% (Chapter 2, Section 9(2) of the social and health care sector’s collective agreement and Chapter 9, Section 9(2) of KVTES).

A lack of language skills does not provide grounds for reducing an employee’s pay. Employers are obligated to verify that their employees have the necessary language skills.

Private sector

Health care services

Private health care services must comply with the universally binding collective agreement for private health care services. According to Section 8 of the collective agreement’s terms on pay, the pay of an employee who does not have the necessary training for a role may be up to 10% lower than the minimum pay rate of the difficulty category in question.

Social welfare services

Private social welfare services must comply with the collective agreement for private social welfare services. According to Section 4(1) of the collective agreement’s terms on pay, an internship may be agreed with a student of this field, during which their pay may be no less than 90% of the minimum pay rate of their role.

Recruitment must comply with ethical rules, signed by bodies such as the WHO, the European social and health care labour union EPSU, and the Finnish Public Services Unions' International Network FIPSU. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and HEUNI (in Finnish) have also published their own recruitment responsibility guidelines as part of the Sufficiency and Availability of Health Care and Social Welfare Personnel programme. Furthermore, the employer and industry association Employment Industry Finland HELA (in Finnish) has its own ethical recruitment guidelines.

In March 2023, the Finnish Government adopted a decision in principle as a strategy (in Finnish) for preventing and combating employment-based abuse. The document aims to enable more effective intervention in cases of worker abuse and ensure that foreign workers do not become victims of abuse.