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Danish labour market under extreme duress

Christian Wenande
November 13th, 2017


This article is more than 7 years old.

New index results grim reading, says Dansk Industri

One instance where you don’t want the highest score (photo: Hays Global Skills Index)

According to a new index published by the recruitment firm Hays, in co-operation with Oxford Economics, out of the 33 countries in the report, the screws have been tightened most in Denmark’s labour market.

The annually-published Hays Global Skills Index (here in English) showed that Denmark’s score in terms of the gap between available jobs and the number of people to fill them had increased from 5.8 to 6.4 from 2016 to 2017, while the average of the 33 countries mentioned in the index fell from 5.4 to 5.3.

“Low employment in the Danish labour market has continued – especially regarding the highly-skilled labour market. However, there is a mismatch between the skills required by businesses and those skills available in the labour pool,” said Morten Andersen, the head of business for Hays Denmark.

“This is evident in the amount of vacant positions across several industries and sectors, which are rarely filled with available personnel. Education, training and retraining of individuals continue to be of vital importance in order to accommodate the needs of businesses going forward.”

READ MORE: A shortage of labour could slow growth, DI warns

Bane to outside recruitement
The index score of 1-10 is based on seven indicators: Education Flexibility, Labour Market Participation, Labour Market Flexibility, Talent Mismatch, Overall Wage Pressure, Wage Pressure In High-Skill Industries and Wage Pressure In High-Skill Occupations.

The national confederation of industry, Dansk Industri (DI), contends that the index provides another example of a Danish labour market under pressure, particularly when it comes to attracting highly-skilled workers from abroad.

“With the increase of the Pay Limit Scheme over the past year, it’s unfortunately become more difficult for companies to recruit labour outside the EU. That development is heading in the wrong direction and compounds the pressure on the labour market instead of easing it,” said Steen Nielsen, the deputy head of DI.


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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.”