62

News

Danes happy with their work

admin
November 11th, 2014


This article is more than 10 years old.

Hi ho, hi ho, its gladly off to work we go

Three out of four Danes are happy with their current job. According to a YouGov poll for MetroXpress newspaper, 75 percent of those surveyed said they were ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with their jobs. 

The happy proletariat cited good colleagues and feeling like they had a voice at work as the reason for their workplace nirvana.

“The classic wage earner, who worked to raise money to live the life of leisure, is in decline,” Professor Henning Jørgensen from Aalborg University told Metroxpress. “A job is now a social institution in which we develop a community.”

Happier than Uncle Sam
Compared to people in 33 European countries, Danes are exceptionally happy at work, according to a 2012 study by Eurofound. Danish workers were in the top four for all the measured parameters and number one for 'job contentment’.

Fewer than half of American workers were satisfied with their jobs in 2013, according to a survey done in that country.

READ MORE: Danes leaving home to find jobs

In almost every individual measure – from wages and retirement plans to vacation policies and commuting – workers were less content with their jobs than they were in 1987. Back then, over 61 percent of workers said they were satisfied.

Employers beware
Henning Jørgensen from the trade union FOA warned employers not to get too cocky.

“During the crisis, it has been an employer's market, and people have been willing to toe the line, especially in the public sector,” he said. “But young workers reject those boundaries and want the chance to show what they can do.”


Share

Most popular

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to receive The Daily Post

















Latest Podcast

A survey carried out by Megafon for TV2 has found that 71 percent of parents have handed over children to daycare in spite of them being sick.

Moreover, 21 percent of those surveyed admitted to medicating their kids with paracetamol, such as Panodil, before sending them to school.

The FOLA parents’ organisation is shocked by the findings.

“I think it is absolutely crazy. It simply cannot be that a child goes to school sick and plays with lots of other children. Then we are faced with the fact that they will infect the whole institution,” said FOLA chair Signe Nielsen.

Pill pushers
At the Børnehuset daycare institution in Silkeborg a meeting was called where parents were implored not to bring their sick children to school.

At Børnehuset there are fears that parents prefer to pack their kids off with a pill without informing teachers.

“We occasionally have children who that they have had a pill for breakfast,” said headteacher Susanne Bødker. “You might think that it is a Panodil more than a vitamin pill, if it is a child who has just been sick, for example.”

Parents sick and tired
Parents, when confronted, often cite pressure at work as a reason for not being able to stay at home with their children.

Many declare that they simply cannot take another day off, as they are afraid of being fired.

Allan Randrup Thomsen, a professor of virology at KU, has heavily criticised the parents’ actions, describing the current situation as a “vicious circle”.

“It promotes the spread of viruses, and it adds momentum to a cycle where parents are pressured by high levels of sick-leave. If they then choose to send the children to daycare while they are still recovering, they keep the epidemic going in daycares, and this in turn puts a greater burden on the parents.”