Sustainable Staffing: Barriers and Opportunities for Strengthening the Role of Vocationally Trained Healthcare Workers in Elderly Care

The project focuses on the largest group of employees in the long-term care sector and examines the conditions that facilitate or hinder their competence development and their willingness to remain in their jobs.

An ageing population points to a looming staffing crisis in Norwegian long-term care. Health authorities are seeking to make better use of the skills and competencies of vocationally trained healthcare workers, while the sector continues to face high levels of attrition among this occupational group.

The project draws on data from a nationwide survey of long-term care workers (NORDCARE) to provide greater insight into the conditions needed for sustainable staffing. Based on responses from 1,796 people working in services for older people, we examine a broad range of factors, from employment, working and learning conditions to recognition and sense of meaning at work. We also explore how everyday working life in the sector is experienced and shaped by a growing group of workers with minority-language backgrounds.

The project forms part of a larger Nordic research project based on nationwide surveys (NORDCARE) conducted in 2005, 2015 and 2025 in four Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The data thus provide not only a representative picture of vocationally trained healthcare workers’ perspectives on their work today, but also an opportunity to identify developments over time and gain insight into similarities and differences between countries that are often regarded as comparable.

An important aim of the project is to ensure that data from the survey are analysed and disseminated to a wider audience, and to enable the Norwegian research team to participate in collaboration with the other Nordic NORDCARE teams. Another aim is to bring together OsloMet researchers with an interest in working-life research on care services to discuss how NORDCARE data can be used in future national and international research proposals.  

The project is funded through OsloMet’s research initiative Inclusion of More Children and Young People.