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WORKING IN DENMARK

JOB

Working in Denmark: Unions and A-kasse

Human resources expert Nancy Rasmussen gives an introduction to picking the union that is right for you and how to protect your finances through private unemployment insurance.

Published: 10 March 2015 10:57 CET
Working in Denmark: Unions and A-kasse
As if settling into a new job wasn't enough, you'll also need to figure out whether you want to join a union and/or an A-kasse. Photo: Colourbox
 
So you’ve had your first day and you are settling into your new job, getting to know how things work with regard to your tasks and responsibilities. All is well, but then come some nagging thoughts. What if something goes wrong and I lose my job? 
 
 
Fortunately, there are some things that you can do to be proactive about securing your finances in the event that you become unemployed. It’s important to note that these are things that you are responsible to arrange for yourself and you should not expect them to be part of your formal employment process. 
 
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Unions 
It is very common in Denmark for employees to join a union, even white collar employees and management. Unions offer a variety of services and support to their members, such as reviewing employment contracts, providing discounts on insurances and other products, and offering great networking opportunities. Unions are generally focused around a specific profession or trade. 
 
It can be hard to know which union you should join, especially if you are new to the Danish labor market and aren’t able to read Danish. I found this handy list, but it is in Danish. The names of many of the unions themselves contain the profession that they are associated with, so you may want to ask a Danish friend for help or run the list through your preferred translation website. 
 
Many of the unions have websites with a section in English, which give a description of the types of professions that they cover. A handful of them are also multidisciplinary. If you are still unsure of which to pick, you can always ask your coworkers for advice, especially those that are in the same profession or trade. 
 
A-kasse
It is also very common and highly recommended for employees to join an A-kasse (arbejdsløshedskasse), which are private organizations that provide unemployment insurance. If you become a member of a union, they will often times recommend a certain A-Kasse and may offer a deal to join.  However, you can join an A-kasse without becoming a member of a union. 
 
It can also be difficult to figure out which A-kasse to join and while some are cheaper than others, it’s not just about paying an insurance premium. It’s a good idea to find an A-kasse that also fits well with your profession or trade. In the event that you become unemployed, it’s good to have an A-kasse that is an appropriate fit for your background, so that they can better help you with your plan to get back into the workforce. 
 
There are a lot of rules that you’ll have to familiarize yourself with, including when you will be allowed to apply for benefits and how long you can receive them.  For example, you generally have to be a member of the A-kasse for a year before being able to apply for benefits. You also have to have worked for a certain period of time within the last three years, which varies depending on whether you were insured as full-time or part-time. If you decide to quit your job yourself, then there will be a waiting period in which you will not eligible to receive benefits. These are just some examples of the rules. All of terms and conditions will be available from your A-kasse, so be sure to review everything carefully. 
 
There is a cap to on the amount you can receive, so you are not automatically covered for your whole salary. You can check if your A-kasse offers a supplemental insurance plan, which you have to pay into for a certain amount of time before you become unemployed, in order to get the additional benefits. 
 
There may also be other great membership benefits from your A-kasse that you can use even while employed. Some offer additional packages for legal advice, which can be helpful if you don’t join a union. There could also be networking opportunities or workshops/webinars that you can participate in, which can help strengthen your overall profile. 
 
What do you want to hear about in my next article? Let us know!
 
Nancy RasmussenNancy Rasmussen is currently employed as a Change Management Consultant, supporting IT projects. She has more than 12 years of experience within large, international companies. She writes this column in her free-time in connection with NemCV. This column is not affiliated with her current full-time employment. 
 

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JOB

‘We wanted to make chocolate to reflect Denmark’s seasons’

Stuart Eve moved to Denmark with his family after his wife, an archaeologist, was offered a job at Aarhus University. Nearly four years later, he is the co-founder of a fair trade chocolate business in the Scandinavian city.

Published: 24 November 2017 14:08 CET
'We wanted to make chocolate to reflect Denmark's seasons'
A chance meeting at their children's daycare resulted in the Ørbæk and Eve families starting their Danish business. Photo: Stuart Eve

Eve still works full time at his day job, also in archaeology. But the sweet-toothed entrepreneur told The Local that Denmark provided him with inspiration to try something out of his comfort zone – starting his own business in a foreign country.

After meeting business partner Anders Ørbæk at the daycare centre attended by their children, the two began the project, initially producing the chocolate out of their own kitchens.

“That has now moved to the renting of a professional space, so that we can scale up production and also get all the relevant food hygiene certificates and so on,” Eve said.

The archaeologist said having Danish partners had been beneficial in the course of setting up a business in the Scandinavian country, even though the process itself was straightforward.

“Actually starting the business was a matter of filling in a few forms online and showing we had 100 kroner [13 euros] in the bank. However, I think without our Danish partners, it would have been quite hard – mainly because of the technical Danish required. My Danish is pretty awful – and there are a lot of financial terms that are difficult to translate,” Eve said.

READ ALSO: Danish: Is it really so hard to learn?

“So I think for us it was essential to have Danish partners. Also, the food hygiene rules and health and safety, while similar to the UK, are quite onerous – and again very technical.

“I run my own archaeology business in the UK, so that has set me in great stead for the financial and business side,” he added.

The startup currently sources some of its supplies from Eve’s native UK – one aspect that may be complicated by Brexit, he said.

“My secret dream is that the chocolate business will enable us to beat Brexit and stay in Denmark for a lot longer — but we'll have to see how it pans out,” he said.

 

Packaged up and ready to go #somerferie #chokolade #beantobar #chocolate

A post shared by Ørbæk & Eve (@oerbaekandeve) on Jul 3, 2017 at 2:40pm PDT

It was not just the administrative side that Eve had to learn on the hoof for his Danish-based business, though – the process of producing the chocolate itself is also new.

“I was eating some Ritter Sport one evening and wondered to myself how chocolate was made, thinking it must be some incredibly complicated industrial process. So I checked out a few YouTube videos and it turns out you can make chocolate in a coffee grinder – it tastes awful because it is so crunchy, but it shows the process. From there it was a matter of buying a bigger grinder and starting to experiment. We have so much to learn still, but people seem to like what we are producing so far,” he said.

The chocolate produced by the startup – which is both fairtrade and organic – is heavily influenced by Denmark’s nature and seasonal variations, including a quarterly subscription service which can be signed up for via a crowdfunding campaign.

“We have been trying to find a way to really represent the beauty and abundance of the Danish countryside and combine it with something that Danes really love – chocolate,” he said.

“Strawberries from Samsø for summer, hazelnuts foraged from the woods for autumn, etc. Between us we have six kids so the family always come in and help during the production days,” he added.

A longer term aim is to consolidate the new company – named Ørbæk & Eve after its co-founders – as a well-known ‘bean to bar’ company in Aarhus.

“Our main reasons for doing this are two-fold. First, we eat a lot of chocolate and have become increasingly concerned by the human and environmental costs of industrialised chocolate production – there are new reports about destruction of rainforest for cocoa plantations and slave labour in West Africa, for example. In order to not be complicit with this, I wanted to figure out how it was made – and to do it myself.

“Second, we have really noticed the differences in the seasons since we moved to Denmark, so we wanted to make chocolate that reflected and celebrated the different qualities of the changing seasons,” he said.

Eve, Ørbæk and their partners are currently spending evenings and weekends on the chocolate production runs.

“As things pick up, I suspect I will move to one dedicated day a week, but we have four of us working on it, so we can usually juggle the time,” he said.

READ MORE: The Local's 'My Danish Career' series