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Copenhagen municipality to offer employees trial four-day week

Copenhagen Municipality is to give its employees in a number of divisions the option of trialling a four-day working week.

Published: 5 March 2024 11:56 CET

Copenhagen municipality to offer employees trial four-day week

Illustration photo. Copenhagen Municipality is trialling a four-day working week in some sections. Photo: Philip Davali/Ritzau Scanpix

Starting this spring, dental hygienists, teachers, social workers, nurses and other professionals will be given the choice of cramming their weekly working hours into four days rather than five in 14 selected workplaces in the municipality, broadcaster DR reports.

The trial was adopted by the municipal background last year following a proposal by Troels Christian Jakobsen, an elected member of the city council with the Alternative party.

“It’s super important for Copenhagen Municipality that we provided good conditions in particular for people working in care jobs. It’s hard to find enough teachers child carers so it’s important to improve the quality of their working lives,” he said.

The concept of switching to a four-day week is not a new one in Denmark.

Municipalities in Esbjerg, Vejen and Odsherred have already offered their staff the option of a longer weekend.

Flexible working hours are meanwhile a trend that has come to stay, according to Janne Gleerup, a labour researcher at Roskilde University.

Gleerup told DR she was pleased to see the idea being tried in Copenhagen.

“Because [they’re doing it in] many different areas, and the work is very different, there will also be some different forms of flexibility you can try out, so it’s not one size fits all. And other municipalities can learn from your experiences,” she said to the broadcaster.

The Copenhagen Municipality trial is scheduled to run until the end of the year with an option for extension in 2025.

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Foreign workers in Denmark 'create 300 billion kroner of value'

Increasing employment in Denmark in recent years is due in no small part to international labour, and the high rate of international employment, couple with a continued low unemployment rate, underline the need for workers from abroad, the Confederation of Danish Industry (Dansk Industri, DI) said in a press release on Monday.

An analysis from DI based on Statistics Denmark data found that, between 2013 and 2023, the number of foreign nationals working full-time in paid employment in Denmark increased from 147,000 to 309,000.

The 2023 level is equivalent to 13 percent of overall employment in Denmark being attributable to foreign labour, DI said.

“You cannot overestimate the importance of international labour in Denmark,” DI’s deputy director Steen Nielsen said in the statement.

“If they had not been here and made the contribution they do, we’d not have been able to produce goods, treat the sick or build the amount of houses we need,” he said.

“It is good business in every way because it means our labour market and business sector is functional, but also because international colleagues are worth billions to Denmark,” he said.

International labour created some 282 billion kroner of value within the Danish economy last year, according to DI’s analysis. That is reportedly a new record and equivalent to 11 percent of the country’s total value output.

“Employment has fallen and the economy would have done the same [shrunk, ed.] ifwe had not had our international colleagues. We owe them a big thenk you for their contributions to Denmark’s progress,” Nielsen said.

The DI deputy director said the analysis showed the continued importance of making Denmark attractive to foreign labour.

READ ALSO: Foreign workers report increased appeal of Denmark and Copenhagen in study

“The coming years will see fewer Danes of working ages. So to retain the affluence and welfare we have today, we must continue to gratefully receive international labour,” Nielsen said.

“A simple and effective measure would be to also allow foreigners from outside of the EU to come here if they have a job offer in line with collective bargaining agreements. That would make an immediate difference,” Nielsen said with reference to the salary and other labour standards set by Denmark’s collective bargaining system.

The business representative underlined that such workers should not be allowed to stay in Denmark if their work circumstances ceased.

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