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WORKING IN DENMARK

Danish businesses repeat call for foreign workers amid labour shortage

Local authorities and a major business interest organisation have urged Denmark’s government to address a labour shortage.

Published: 5 August 2022 15:30 CEST
Danish businesses repeat call for foreign workers amid labour shortage
A representative for Danish municipalities said services may have to be cut if a labour shortage is not addressed. Photo by everdrop GmbH on Unsplash

Unmet demand for labour in both private businesses and the public sector has reached a crisis point, according to an appeal to the government to reach a broader labour agreement. 

Parliament must renew its efforts to find a new national compromise which will secure more labour, the National Association of Municipalities (Kommunernes Landsforening, KL) and the Confederation of Danish Industry (Dansk Industri, DI) said according to financial media Finans.

“The parties [in parliament] must be honest with voters and start a completely different and strict prioritisation of what the public sector can offer people,” mayor and KL chairperson Martin Damm told news wire Ritzau.

“Otherwise, the parties must find the labour needed for private companies to provide growth and wellbeing, and for us at municipalities to have the staff and economy to deliver the services people expect,” he said.

The municipalities will need 44,000 additional employees by 2030 due to increasing numbers of children and elderly in the population, according to KL.

Short the lack of labour persist, municipal governments could be forced to reduce the priority of services such as cleaning for elderly residents, according to Damm.

Danish businesses are finding it harder than ever to recruit staff and could hire 38,000 new workers immediately if they were available, according to DI, which represents the interests of about 19,000 Danish companies. 

Lars Sandahl Sørensen, managing director of DI, firmly believes the answer to the labour shortage lies outside Danish borders. 

“We will need many more foreigners,” Sørensen told Finans.

“It is not about getting cheap labour, but about getting people at all. We are in a situation where we do not have employees to carry out the things on green conversion that we have already decided to do, and that we would like to do on health and welfare,” he said.

Employment minister Peter Hummelgaard told Finans that the government agreed a deal on international recruitment shortly before the summer break.

READ MORE: How can you get a work permit in Denmark if you aren’t an EU national? 

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WORKING IN DENMARK

‘One in two’ tax inspections found social dumping at Danish companies

Visits by inspectors uncovered the practice of social dumping at over half of companies checked in Denmark last year, the Ministry of Tax said on Friday.

Published: 17 March 2023 15:52 CET
'One in two' tax inspections found social dumping at Danish companies

Inspections in 2022 at workplaces including restaurants, construction sites and agricultural and cleaning businesses turned up a large number of cases of social dumping.

Some 3,343 inspections were conducted during the year, scrutinising working environments and tax payments along with staff work and residence permits, the Danish Tax Agency (Skattestyrelsen) said.

Social dumping is defined by the EU as the practice whereby “workers are given pay and/or working and living conditions which are sub-standard compared to those specified by law or collective agreements in the relevant labour market, or otherwise prevalent there.”

This means that, in cases where the Danish authorities detected social dumping, foreign staff were working under poorer conditions than the law or relevant collective bargaining agreement provides for Danish nationals. This saves employers money because the labour costs them less.

The Tax Agency is responsible for checking Danish tax rules are properly complied with. As such, the checks by the Tax Agency checked tax aspects of potential social dumping breaches, with other authorities responsible for other areas.

The Tax Agency can detect social dumping by, for example, checking the amount of income tax or VAT (moms in Danish) paid at a company.

Companies were asked to regulate their tax payments at more than one in two inspections in 2022, according to the tax ministry.

“The new report from the Tax Agency clearly shows that there is an issue here and that the joint efforts from authorities are paying off,” Tax Minister Jeppe Bruus said in the statement.

Some 1.9 billion kroner has been raised by the state in tax demands made as a result of social dumping inspections since 2015.

Last year’s inspections enabled tax authorities to demand 317 million kroner, the highest figure since structured control of social dumping began in 2012. The prior year, 2021, saw demands for 311 million kroner issued as a result of the inspections.

“It’s crucial for the economy and cohesion in society that there is respect for the playing rules of the Danish labour market,” Bruus said.

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