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Danish island hires social care workers from EU countries due to shortage

The municipal government on southern Danish island Lolland has begun hiring staff from Spain, Italy and Hungary to address a major shortage of social care personnel.

Published: 17 October 2022 18:06 CEST

Danish island hires social care workers from EU countries due to shortage

Denmark is short of staff in its elderly and social care sectors. File photo: Ida Guldbæk Arentsen/Ritzau Scanpix

Lolland said it was short of 90 personnel and had now begun the process of hiring staff from the EU, broadcaster DR reports.

The last six months has seen more than 15,000 available positions in the social care or SOSU sector go unfilled nationally, according to government figures reported by DR.

By 2030, Denmark will be short of 16,000 staff for social care jobs, according to the national organisation for municipalities, Kommunernes Landsforening (KL). That is in part because the number of people aged over 80 in Denmark is projected to increase to 134,000 over the next eight year.

Lolland is currently short of 90 staff for the sector, DR reports.

Agreements have already been made with social care staff who will undergo language courses before starting work on Lolland.

“16 have said ‘yes’, and they have begun an intensive language course online. That means they are now sitting at home acquiring the basic language skills,” Lolland’s mayor Holger Schou Rasmussen told DR.

They will later study in Denmark and will be ready to join the Danish labour market in March, according to the plan.

READ ALSO: Could Denmark’s election result affect work permit and citizenship rules?

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ANALYSIS: Is left-wing party’s EU election win good news for foreigners in Denmark?

What happened in the election?

Sunday’s EU elections can be considered a huge win for the Socialist People’s Party (SF).

The party reeived 17.4 percent of the vote, up 4.2 points from 2019, making it the largest Danish party in the EU parliament and giving it 3 of Denmark’s 15 seats.

It also means SF now has as many EU parliament seats as the goverining Social Democrats, who lost 5.9 points to end on 15.6 percent, with their mandate allocation staying at 3.

The two parties are closely aligned in domestic Danish politics, despite SF currently being in opposition and the Social Democrats being the senior partner in a tripartite coalition with the centre-right Liberals (Venstre) and centrist Moderates.

Like the Social Democrats, the Liberals also had a damaging evening. The party lost 8.8 points and is now Denmark’s third-largest in the EU on 14.7 percent and 2 seats – 2 fewer than it had in 2019. However, they remain the largest Danish right-wing party in the EU by some distance, seeing off any challenge from the libertarian Liberal Alliance (LA) along with the far right.

The Moderates, meanwhile, took a single seat in the EU parliament for their lead candidate Stine Bosse with a 5.9 percent share in their first EU election.

READ ALSO: Four key takeaways from the EU elections in Denmark

What is the potential impact on domestic politics?

Speaking on election night, SF leader Pia Olsen Dyhr said the party’s excellent result could be used as a “catalyst” for a new political landscape in Denmark.

The EU election result can fuel further gains for SF when the next general election comes around, Dyhr said in the midst of her party’s celebrations.

“There’s an alternative to this government. There’s an alternative that wants [more] welfare and [to do more for] the climate and we are willing to deliver this in the EU parliament,” she told broadcaster DR.

“It gives us a tailwind and enthusiasm for the party and it means people will be even more ready for local elections next year and the general election further ahead,” she said.

During a press briefing on Monday, chief political analyst at Think Tank Europe Christine Nissen said that the resounding result for SF could indeed have implications for future national elections.

“We won’t see any direct results or change in government right away but there’s no doubt that the power balances are reflected in such a result as yesterday because it was so significant,” Nissen said, highlighting in particular the poor outcome for the Social Democrats.

“I think that looking towards the next national election, the Social Democrats might well have a very strong party on the left. And this will also matter,” she said.

During Prime Minister Frederiksen’s first term between 2019 and 2022, the Social Democrats ruled as a minority government propped up by parties to its left – including SF.

Theoretically, this structure or a similar one could return but with a stronger and more influential SF, if that party can transfer its European vote return to a national one. Neither the Social Democrats nor SF have given any hint of this happening, it should be noted.

Would a more influential SF change anything for foreigners?

The answer to this question is speculative, but SF and Social Democrats are generally allies. SF says it favours a “sensible” approach to immigration and in practice agrees with the Social Democrats more often than not.

SF has, occasionally, set out areas on which it does not agree with Social Democratic policies.

This has included accepting quota refugees from the UN – a question on which the Social Democrats eventually changed stance and agreed with SF.

The smaller party has also advocated more accommodating rules for family reunification of refugees, and opposed some controversial policies such as the “Jewellery Law” which was supported by the Social Democrats (but proposed by the Liberals).

On broad issues such as citizenship and residency permits, SF has not often broken with the Social Democrats during Frederiksen’s time in office – so much so, that the party has been criticised by its own youth wing for taking too tough a line on immigration.

While other left-wing parties like the Red-Green Alliance and Social Liberals, for example, want to change citizenship rules to better accommodate Danish-born non-citizens, SF is yet to explicitly support this.

On work permits, the party sometimes votes against rule adjustments that make it easier to hire from abroad (as can be seen here), ostensibly because one of its core identities is as a workers’ party which protects Danish labour.

It is therefore far from certain, if SF had many more seats in parliament than it does today, that the party would pursue a significantly changed approach on immigration and integration.

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