Benefits agency Kela on Wednesday said the costs of mental health-related sick leaves amounted to at least one billion euros last year.
This is equivalent to 26,000 people being absent from full-time work for an entire year.
Sick leave expenditures have significantly increased over the last decade.
According to Kela, mental health sick leave costs have increased by nearly half a billion euros, or almost 90 percent over the past ten years when adjusted for inflation. This outlay has, however, levelled off more recently.
Reducing mental health-related absences would benefit employers, citizens and society as a whole, according to Mikko Rissanen, a senior specialist at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.
"Supporting mental health and the ability to work is crucial, not only for individuals on a personal level but also for society as a whole. We're talking about a significant amount of labour that's lost every year," he said.
A report published this month meanwhile found that more Finnish children than ever before were accessing mental health services.
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