Wellbeing regions more than halve agency staffing costs

Spending on agency workers by Finland’s wellbeing services counties, regional authorities responsible for health and social services, fell by a fifth in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period last year, according to figures reported by Yle. Costs have more than halved since 2024, and agency work now accounts for less than 2% of the counties’ personnel expenses.

The counties have taken targeted steps to reduce their reliance on agency staff, said Juri Matinheikki, a senior specialist at the Ministry of Finance. Agency work can be useful in some situations, he said, but its use may have been “somewhat reckless” when the counties began operating in 2023.

Agency workers have been used when counties could not recruit enough permanent staff to meet their statutory duties. Renting doctors has at times been particularly expensive, with fees reaching several times the cost of employing doctors directly. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has also worked to curb agency staffing.

Matinheikki said cost-cutting measures and a less severe labour shortage have helped reduce use. Counties have also brought down agency rates through competitive tendering. Demand for workers had been high, he said, pushing prices up.

The Vantaa and Kerava wellbeing services county has stopped hiring doctors through agencies. The county, which was placed under special monitoring by the Ministry of Finance because of its deficit, has since corrected the shortfall. It now hires some nurses through Seure, a staffing company owned by municipalities and wellbeing services counties. The county previously spent 30 million to 40 million euros a year on agency staff.

County director Timo Aronkytö said agency staff cost more and do not become part of the organisation or help build its expertise. He said Vantaa and Kerava had succeeded in recruiting enough permanent staff by becoming a better employer. In his view, counties that still rely on agency workers have not yet built systems that support recruitment of their own staff.

Kainuu and Southwest Finland were the only counties where agency staffing increased compared with last year. In Kainuu, spending reached more than 8 million euros in January to September, around 2 million euros higher than a year earlier and almost a quarter more. Most of the spending was on doctors.

Kainuu county director Sami Mäenpää said specialists are harder to recruit in more remote areas than in southern growth centres. He said doctors, like other people, are drawn to urban living conditions. Agency staffing has nevertheless declined in Kainuu over the longer term.