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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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Why are Danish experts recommending closure of all job centres?

Denmark’s job centres, which are responsible for administration of social welfare benefits for people seeking employment and of facilitating training and work placements under welfare lows, should be closed according to recommendations handed to the government on Monday.

Additionally, over half of the current rules related to unemployment benefits should be scrapped and 9 in 10 sanctions for people who fail to comply with criteria such as attending meetings or applying for a set number of jobs.

Denmark has two broad tiers for those out of work: dagpenge, which provides an income calculated on the person’s tax payments while in employment, and the more basic kontanthjælp.

Dagpenge is available to people who a paying members of a semi-private uninsurance provider called an Arbejdsløshedskasse or A-kasse, while kontanthjælp is available to everyone.

Both groups must comply with legal requirements related to job searching in order to receive the benefits they qualify for – these are administered by municipal job centres.

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When the coalition government took office at the end of 2022 it stated that it wanted to save three billion kroner annually by reforming the municipal unemployment area and improving its efficiency – specifically by targeting job centres.

This has led to an expert group, appointed by the government, making six specific requirements – those announce on Monday.

The government is not obliged to follow the recommendations.

But the expert group says there is much to gain from closing job centres.

“There’s great potential in replacing the current one-size-fits-all system with a new approach where individual needs are in focus,” group chairperson Claus Thustrup Kreiner said in a press statement.

The six broad recommendations are as follows:

Fewer target groups and special rules
Individual programmes
More balanced sanctions system
Abolish job centres and introduce free organisation at municipalities
Give more influence to A-kasse and private interests
Results, not system-based approach

|Source: DR

“Our report includes recommendations for the biggest reform of the jobseeking area ever, and will make the system cheaper, simpler and more dignified without weakening employment,” Kreiner said.

The national confederation for trade unions, Fagbevægelsens Hovedorganisation (FH), criticised the costcutting element of the recommendations in comments to broadcaster DR, and also said it would reduce the options and rights of jobseekers.

“I thought this was about giving unemployed people more freedom to decide what they need,” FH chairperson Nanna Højlund said.

“But the expert group clearly sees it as being about allowing municipalities to do exactly what they want,” she said.

The Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) welcomed the proposals.

“The expert group has proposed a simplification of employment with fewer rules and benefit categories and with a large saving” DI deputy director Steen Nielsen said in a statement.

“That is a good idea because it’s difficult to run a job centre efficiently with the many different criteria and rules that must be met for each of the many categories,” he added.

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