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Business

Forecast: Growth could lead to labour shortage

admin
February 20th, 2015


This article is more than 9 years old.

Unemployment predicted to fall as new jobs are created

A new economic forecast by the industrial advocates Dansk Industri (DI) predicts more growth in private consumption and export in the coming two years, resulting in up to 32,000 new jobs. But a lack of qualified workers could hamper growth, it warns.

Turns on a warning light
Karsten Dybvad, the head of DI, explains that the Danish economy is expected to grow by 1.3 percent in 2015 and 1.7 percent in 2016. “Even though growth will just be moderate this year and next year, we can look forward to 32,000 new jobs in the private sector,” he said.

“That is a positive development but it turns on a warning light. Because as soon as next year unemployement will be getting so low that companies will have difficulty finding specialists and employees they need.”

DI expects the number of unemployed to drop from 134,000 in 2014 to 113,000 in 2016.

Dybvad sees the problem as being a priority for politicians. “If companies don’t have employees for delivering the orders, then competitors get them instead,” he said.

“Our politicians need to deal with that – also in an election campaign. There’s a great need to get all Danes that are fit to work in jobs.”


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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.”