Slower growth in the number of workers posted to Finland

The number of workers posted to Finland grew in 2023, but not as significantly as in the previous year. Many companies posting workers neglected their obligation to notify the occupational safety and health authority of their posted workers. There were also many shortcomings in the pay of posted workers and records of working hours. All this is revealed by a recent report by the occupational safety and health authority.

When a foreign company posts workers to Finland, it has to submit a notification of the posting to the occupational safety and health authority before starting work. 

In 2023, the occupational safety and health authority received more than 20,000 notifications from 51 countries. The volume of reports was 11.6% higher than in the previous year. However, growth had clearly slowed down, as the volume of notifications grew by as much as 83% in 2022. The most notifications came from Estonia, Germany and Lithuania. 

The number of posted workers in Finland is best illustrated by the number of employees reported in companies’ first notifications. In 2023, that figure was about 32,000. The number of employees grew by about 5.5% from the previous year. In 2022, this growth was clearly greater at 21%. 

Significant regional differences – highest growth in Eastern Finland

In Southern Finland, the number of notifications remained practically the same as in the previous year. This was due to the fact that, although there were more notifications overall, the number of notifications in the building construction sector started to decline. Notifications concerning the building construction sector are clearly concentrated to Southern Finland. 

In Eastern Finland, the number of notifications continued to grow sharply with an increase of 40.4% compared to 2022. The number of notified workers increased by as much as 57.5%. Still, Eastern Finland only makes up a relatively small part of all notifications in Finland at just over 4%.

In Southwest Finland, the number of notifications increased by 27.7% and the number of workers by 10.5%. The growth was especially notable in Southwest Finland. The number of workers notified in Satakunta started to decline.  

In Western and Inland Finland, the number of notifications and workers remained almost unchanged. The increase was only 0.6% for the number of notifications and 0.8% for the number of workers. 

In Northern Finland, the number of notifications increased by 8.1%. Only Kainuu saw significant growth. This is a vast difference compared to 2022, as the number of notifications increased clearly faster in Northern Finland than in the rest of the country. 

The report specifies the regional numbers of posted workers notified to the occupational safety and health authority. 

Many shortcomings in compliance with legislation

Occupational safety and health authorities carried out a total of 328 inspections as part of the supervision of posted workers in Finland in 2023. A key issue in enforcement was ensuring that companies posting workers to Finland from abroad and contractors using posted workers comply with Finnish legislation on posted workers.

Written advice was most often issued for non-conformance with the notification obligation. A large number of non-conformances were also observed in pay, records of working hours and the terms of employment.

About half of the inspections of posting companies led to a consideration of a negligence fee. The most common reason for considering a negligence fee is failure to comply with the notification obligation. There were no cases of considering a negligence fee for a contractor. 

Read more in the report

Read more in Enforcement of the posting of workers and notifications of posting in 2023 (pdf). 

The report is also available in Finnish and in Swedish.