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RESIDENCY PERMITS

Denmark to prevent deportations of people studying for ‘in demand’ jobs

Denmark's Ministry of Immigration and Integration has said it will introduce rules allowing people whose residence permits are revoked to stay in the country if they are studying for professions considered to be in demand on the country’s labour market.

Published: 2 February 2024 15:52 CET
Denmark to prevent deportations of people studying for 'in demand' jobs
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen meets social care (sosu) students in Odense in January 2024. Denmark is to adjust immigration rules to prevent deportations of people studying subjects where labour is in-demand. Photo: Tim Kildeborg Jensen/Ritzau Scanpix

In a statement, the ministry said that it would give “certain foreigners who are studying within sectors where there is a lack of labour the chance to stay in Denmark and complete their studies so they can contribute to Danish society”.

It said that “in recent years there have been a number of examples of foreigners who have lost their residence permits and been ordered to leave Denmark even though they were studying within an area where there is a high demand for labour, such as the health sector”.

A large number of individual cases fitting that description have indeed been reported by Danish newspapers Ekstra Bladet and Politiken, as well as The Local in recent years, often describing situations where the individuals are required to leave the country despite being apparently well-integrated and engaged on the labour market or in education.

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The government will now table a bill in parliament that will change existing immigration rules to allow foreign nationals ordered to leave Denmark to extend their stay if they have been accepted for or have begun a professional or higher education programme within a sector where there is a labour shortage.

The study programmes that will qualify for this will be selected based on “job functions stated on the so-called positive lists”, the ministry said in the statement. This refers to lists of in-demand professions or trades eligible for work permits used by immigration authorities under the Positive List scheme.

This can include training programmes for professions ranging from social health (sosu) carers, cooks, carpenters, doctors, nurses and IT engineers, according to the ministry.

Under the new rules, a new residency scheme will exist for persons engaged on education programmes directed towards the eligible professions if their existing residence permit is withdrawn or not renewed.

“It’s important for me that the government pursues strict immigration policies. At the same time it’s a known fact that we need labour – especially in the health sector,” Immigration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek said in the statement.

It was therefore “common sense” to introduce the proposed scheme, he said.

“The scheme will affect a relatively small group but is part of the government’s overall effort to secure labour in the health sector,” he said.

The new scheme would take effect from June 1st, according to the proposal, but would apply retroactively for anyone who lost their residency rights from July 1st 2020 onwards.

To qualify, the foreign resident must still be in Denmark and must have been enrolled on the relative education course at the time their residence permit was revoked.

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WORKING IN DENMARK

How will Denmark’s new rules on recording working hours affect you?

From July this year, all people working in Denmark will have to document any deviations from their agreed working hours. Here's how it's going to work.

Published: 13 May 2024 13:13 CEST
Updated: 13 May 2024 15:14 CEST
How will Denmark's new rules on recording working hours affect you?

On January 23rd, Denmark’s parliament voted through a law that, among other things, requires all Danish employers to introduce a working hours registration system that makes it possible to measure the daily working hours of each individual employee. 

The requirement, which comes into force on July 1st, implements a 2019 judgement of the EU Court, which stated that all member states needed to bring in laws requiring employers to record how many hours per week each employee is working.

The bill is built on an agreement reached on June 30th last year between the Confederation of Danish Employers, the Danish Trade Union Confederation, and Denmark’s white collar union, the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations. 

Will everyone working in Denmark now need to keep a detailed record of the hours they put in each day? 

No. Workers will only need to register any deviations from the working hours they have already agreed or been scheduled. So long as they stick to their scheduled hours, they never need to open the app, website, or other time registration system their organisation has set up. 

If they have to come in early for an interview, however, or do a bit of preparation for a meeting the next day in the evening, they will be expected to log those extra hours. 

Similarly, if they pop out for a dentist’s appointment, or to get a haircut, those reductions in working hours should all be noted down. 

What do employers need to do? 

All employers need to set up and maintain a detailed record of the actual hours worked by their employees, but the law gives them a lot of flexibility over how to do this, insisting only that the record be “objective, reliable and accessible”. 

They could do it in the old-fashioned way using a shared Excel spreadsheet, or, as most probably will, use an app such as Timetastic from the UK, ConnectTeam from the US, or Denmark’s zTime or Timelog.

To make it easier for their employees, employers can fill their scheduled hours into the time registration system in advance, so that workers only need to make a log of any deviations.  

Under the law, employers are required to keep these records for five years.

Employees empowered to set their own schedule — so called self-organisers — are exempt from the law, but as the law states that such people should be able to reorganise their own working time “in its entirety” and that this power should be enshrined in their contracts, this is only expected to apply to the most senior tier of executives. 

Who will be able to see my working hours? 

Each employee should only have access to their own data, which is covered by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and should not be able to see a detailed record of hours worked by their colleagues. 

Managers, however, will have access to the working hours records made by their subordinates. 

Will the legislation put limits on how many hours I can work? 

Yes, but in theory those hours already are limited for almost all employees by collective bargaining agreements. 

The new rule is intended to make sure that employees do not work more than 48 hours per week on average over a period of four months, the minimum standard under EU law, known as the 48-hour rule.

People in certain professions can, however, work longer than the 48-hours if they are covered by a so-called “opt-out”. 

Won’t it just be an additional hassle? 

The Danish Business Authority, the government agency which is supposed to support businesses in Denmark, estimates that keeping the time registration system up to date will only take between one to three minutes of employees’ time. 

In addition, it estimates that as much as 80 percent of employees in the country already keep a record of their time. 

Henrik Baagøe Fredelykke, a union official at Lego, said in an article on the website of the HK union, that he believed that the records could serve as an “eye-opener” about unrecorded overtime. 

What was crucial, he said, was that the system was used primarily to ensure that there was no systemic deviation from working hours and not to police employees. 

“It must not be used for monitoring by the management, who can come and say ‘whoa, why didn’t you work 7.4 hours yesterday?’,” Fredelykke said.

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