The purpose of this prospective study was to investigate how well the selection process to vocationally oriented medical rehabilitation (VOMR) has succeeded in 2000's to identify persons under an elevated risk of work disability. Data were collected from responses to survey and national health registers. There were only small or no associations between studied risk factors and employees' chances to be selected to VOMR without significant differences between three sub-cohorts (N=44056-44980) which were formed based on the time of response to survey. Apparently failed selection may weaken the effectiveness of this common Finnish rehabilitation.