Recruitment and retention of professional labour: The health workforce at settlement level

This chapter proposes that effective recruitment and retention of health ( and other) professionals in sparsely populated areas relies on an understanding of the specific location in which the workforce will be based, the workplace and the existing local health workforce. While recruitment and retention is a problem for almost all sparsely populated areas, getting the right 'place-workforce-workplace' fit is a process that is specific to individual settlements. The chapter uses research from Australia (attributes of local health workforce) and Canada (attributes of work and the workplace) to illustrate the diversity of contexts for recruitment and retention. Research from Sweden will demonstrate how settlement-sensitive recruitment and retention programmes may be designed and implemented.