The investigation driven by Trade Union JHL is going further: A ministry working group will contemplate how the health and social services sector can hold on to enough many competent employees

JHL reminds that the problems of the health and social services sector cannot be solved simply by training nurses. A ministry is setting up a working group that has the aim of finding out how the sector’s occupations could attract enough employees in the future.

A solution to the shortage of labour in the health and social services sector is one step closer to reality. The sector has long been suffering from a shortage of labour. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is now setting up a working group whose duty is to contemplate how the health and social services sector’s occupations would attract enough employees in the future. Already a year ago, Trade Union JHL suggested to Social Democratic minister Krista Kiuru that a working group should be appointed.

– Health and social services must have enough employees to guarantee good care in Finland also in the future, regardless of how many euros a citizen has on their bank account, JHL President Päivi Niemi-Laine says.

Niemi-Laine reminds that nurses alone are not the only solution to the sector’s shortage of labour. Proper care for the elderly is made possible by well-functioning support service. That means that enough many cleaners, instruments attendants and catering services professionals need to be hired to care facilities and health centres. Practical nurses and registered nurses need care assistants to support them. When a work community has many kinds of professionals, nurses will not have to spend their working day wiping tables or delivering food.

The health and social services reform is a good opportunity to make health and social services jobs even more appealing.  A large group of professionals will begin to work for wellbeing services counties: The counties will in the future employ close to 200,000 people. To find employees for jobs, the pay must be sufficient.

In addition to JHL, the ministry working group has representatives from various ministries and welfare sector employee and employer organisations. The working group will already start in November, and it will continue its operations until the end of the current term of office. However, the sector’s employers have a good opportunity to increase the appeal of health and social services sector occupations already this coming winter, as new terms and conditions of employment will be negotiated for the sector.

– Every professional has earned a pay raise. It is now time to bridge the gaps of unjustified differences in pay between various occupations and genders. Proper pay and terms and conditions of employment are a quick method for attracting a larger number of competent work applicants, Niemi-Laine emphasises.

More information:

Trade Union JHL President Päivi Niemi-Laine 040 702 4772